Vale Ms McAlister

Unlike most of my posts, this one will be image-less.

While it’s almost customary to provide pictures of our deceased loved ones, it actually goes against my cultural beliefs. In many traditional Australian Aboriginal customs, photographs of now-deceased people are strictly taboo. Though the beliefs vary slightly between regions, there is a discomfort in ‘seeing’ those who have passed. Many have ones regarding the names of deceased persons too, though I do not hold to that in my own death beliefs.

It makes a lot of sense if you think about it. The people who know and care for are dead. They should be gone. These are communities where death is very common, and very real to everyone. You watch people die, you bury them before decomposition sets in. Death. And photographs? They’re that ‘gone’ person, still hanging around. While the ‘magic’ of photography has eased the taboo in many, it’s still a very unnerving concept. I hold to that.

As such, you’ll have to be content with my memories and descriptions of a woman who not only changed my life, but saved it.

Many of you know that I had a difficult childhood. There was abuse and neglect of multiple kinds. I had a hard run. I still haven’t completely come to terms with it all.

In the midst of coping with trauma and resultant mental illness, I had to go through adolescence too. I’m not sure high school was kind to most people, but it’s certainly not ideal if you’re trying to process child sexual abuse.

High school was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Don’t get me wrong. It hurt. I struggled. I disliked most of my teachers and peers. There are bright moments in there, flares of memories to convince me that it wasn’t all bad. The day J wore a skirt to school and Mr Jones was on lunch duty, and walked him away for a lecture. The day T laughed so hard purple yoghurt came out of her nose. T features in most of my good memories, and a few of the teenage-spat ones too.

But the pain. The brilliant, shining pain. Trying to convince myself that school was better than home, if only by a little. Through all of this, my Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome went undiagnosed. I was a ‘hypochondriac’ and looking for excuses to get out of things. Years later we realised all my ‘fake’ sprains were joint dislocations. I still haven’t completely forgiven the adults in my life at the time.

By the final grade of high school (Year 12), I was 16. Almost 17. I was also terribly unwell.

I’d fled home in the middle of the night during the summer holidays after my mother attacked me. She’d strangled me in an alcohol-fuelled (and I suspect drug-fuelled) frenzy. Hairline fracture in my wrist, bone bruising in my jaw.

I’d been struggling to keep my head above water post-trauma, but after I was forced out of my childhood home for my own safety, I went under.

I’d shown signs of an eating disorder for some time, but it was only then that it took hold. I stopped eating, completely. Anorexia Nervosa, depression, and PTSD held me in their grips firmly. I pushed myself to keep going to school while living at a youth refuge. I harmed myself daily, tried to end my life almost weekly at that stage.

I thought I was presenting so well to the outside world. I hid my wounds beneath knee-high socks and long-sleeved clothing. I smiled when it was polite to do so. I pushed myself through.

She saw.

Ms McAlister (‘Ms Mac’ to us) was my English teacher for 3 of my 6 years of high school. She was tall, pale, and had this amazingly curly hair, kept short. She had a bandanna tied around one wrist. She also had the sharpest, barbed sarcasm of anyone I’ve known since.

I have not met anyone else who could call their students ‘stupid idiots’ and threaten to stab us, and really mean ‘I love you’ – and we knew it.

Let me backtrack a minute. Year 11 – 2004 – was my very first year of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month – A 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Click here for more information). It was only in its sixth year, and just started to filter out across the internet. That year there were 42,000 participants, and just under 6000 ‘winners’. I was one of them.

I’ve wanted to write books since I found out that people wrote them (as opposed them just existing, like trees and rocks). My first real attempt was that year. Everyone else thought I was insane. I was crazy to want to spend my life writing books, crazier to think that I could do it, and truly off my rocker to think I could do it in a month.

Ms Mac was the only person who really thought I could.

That month, I didn’t do any classwork. Not my decision, but hers. Any time I tried to contribute to class discussion, she pointed me back to the laptop I’d borrowed from the Science faculty, and told me to write. I brought her tidbits and asked what she thought. T, mentioned earlier, was also subjected to snippets of my very first novel. I’m sorry. So very sorry.

Fast forward back to 2005, grade 12. Acutely unwell, both physically and mentally. Most people either not noticing, or just believing it was someone else’s problem – my parents’, probably, but I didn’t live with them anymore. Who is your Mum when your own strangled you on New Year’s Day?

Ms Mac.

She was more than my English teacher, or simply a mentor or friend. She stepped up to be the parent I should have had from the beginning. She didn’t need to, it was just more work for her. There was no teacherly obligation – if anything what we did stepped outside the bounds of teacher/student relationships. She did it because it was the kind of person she was.

She told me once that she wished I’d just pass out at assembly (standing for the national anthem), because then she could have made me get help. As it was, I was still semi-functioning and there wasn’t much she could do. I was in the grips of an eating disorder, and if there’s anything they’re famous for, it’s for lying. To others, but mostly to the person who has it. Dysmorphia is a terrible thing.

Eventually she convinced me to go to the hospital. She gave me her home phone number, told me to call if there was a problem. There was, of course. My body is surprisingly resilient. Despite not having eaten for quite some time, my bloodwork was totally fine. No grounds to admit me for treatment, and outpatient programs were booked for months and months. I called her, furious but defeated. Why was I even there? I didn’t need help. My disorder said I was still fat, the hospital thought there was nothing wrong with me.

She blew in like a thunderstorm. Drove to the hospital and decimated anyone who dared try to tell her that I was okay. I was admitted briefly, but discharged after a few days for being non-compliant, but also not unwell enough to treat involuntarily.

Ms Mac, and my legal studies teacher Mrs Paix, spent the next few months holding me together. Ms Mac would talk to me several times a day. I’d just go sob in her classroom when I needed to be alone. Mrs Paix made me show up to class with food – I wasn’t allowed in without something in my hand. When I expressed anxiety at being singled out, she turned every single class into a tea party. She’d pinch the hot water urn from the legal staffroom, and bring cookies and cakes in to class – everyone had to eat, she said. Including me. Few things have touched me more.

Ms Mac’s funeral was last Friday. T made sure I was able to attend, and offered herself up as my personal hotel and chauffeur. She knew how much Ms Mac meant to me.

The chapel overflowed. Inside, every seat was filled. People sat all down the central aisle, and stood in rows along the walls. Even with every spare inch occupied, there were still an extra 30 or so people standing outside the chapel, listening in.

At my high school, the teachers mostly kept to their own faculty staffrooms. English, Maths, Science, History, Food Technology, you get the picture. While there was an overwhelmingly high percentage of English teachers present, I was stunned to realise something else.

There were a few other teachers I was close to in high school. Not like Ms Mac, but a few others who had gone out of their way for me. Mrs Caulfield, my maths teacher who knew that I wanted to write instead of do calculus, and treated me kindly for it. Mrs Dowler, the food tech teacher I hated for years, and then valued dearly.  Mrs Paix, the legal studies teacher who went to great lengths to make sure I was cared for, and included.

The other teachers who went out of their way for me were all there. They had nothing to do with the English staffroom, but they were there too. The very qualities that bound me to particular teachers, they’d found within each other – and all found within Ms Mac.

I’d always imagined that I’d go back one day, and she’d still be teaching. I’d hand her my novels. I’d tell her that I’d made it, and it was all because of her.

I’d tell her all about all my work in youth mental health and suicide prevention, and how I was only able to do it because she got me through it.

I’d tell her all about my children, and the lessons I’d passed to them were the ones she taught me.

I’d tell her that I was only here because of her.

I’d tell her that all my good bits were her. All of them. That the woman I’d grown up to be was a direct result of her caring more than she ever had to.

And now I can’t.

I’m back home now. It still sears that the world is just a little less bright without her. Mark said something very useful after I found out about her death. I was sobbing about never getting the chance to take my books back to her and tell her that she was the only one who believed in me.

“You didn’t have to”, he said. “She didn’t need you to go back and show her what you could do. She already knew. That’s why she encouraged you in the first place.”

He was right. I know that she didn’t make lip service to her students. She absolutely, truly believed that they were the little balls of potential that she said they were. That was why she pushed us, why she threatened us, and why she consoled us.

I was accepted into a short story anthology about a month ago, and was given the opportunity to include a dedication (real author moment there). Even though the words I sent in were before her passing, they remain permanently true. Her belief in me as a person, and me as writer, will be in every single word I put to paper for the rest of my life.

“‘To the formative women in my life. Ms McAlister, who taught me that writing was where my heart was, and to my Lionheart who has reminded me every day since.”

Vale, Ms McAlister, and thank you.

Thank you.

What does Adam Goodes have to do with rape? :: (or why being a good guy sucks sometimes)

They seem like two unrelated issues, but the constant booing of Adam Goodes has an awful lot to do with telling rape jokes. If you’re a non-racist who agrees with booing Goodes, this blog post is for you.

For those who aren’t intimately familiar with Aussie Rules football (AFL), Australia’s entrenched racism, and how they’ve hit the news lately, you might want to visit this link. If you’re already familiar with what’s going on, you can skip the synopsis and start reading from the picture of a cat playing football.

That’s a pretty big trophy. I call reverse racism! It would be smaller if he was white!

The quick summary is that Adam Goodes is an AFL player. Most people would say he’s pretty good at what he does – He’s won the top award for ‘being good at that football thing’ twice. He’s been awarded ‘Australian of the Year’ (it’s a real thing, we give it out to people who contribute to communities and culture, or for individual achievement – he’s done both).

He’s also an outspoken Aboriginal activist. That’s where this starts to get messy.

The AFL has an indigenous round, dedicated to recognising Aboriginal culture and achievement in the sport. To be clear – this round is specifically dedicated to indigenous culture and achievement. People attending the game were attending a round dedicated to Aboriginal culture and achievement.

At the 2013 round, a 13 year old girl hurled racist insults at Goodes from the stands. Yes, a girl was yelling racist insults at an indigenous player during the Indigenous Round.

She was ejected from the stadium as a result. Goodes didn’t ask for her removal, and didn’t even blame her for her comments – instead, he used it as what Internet Parents would call a ‘learning moment’.

“I’ve had fantastic support over the past 24 hours,” Goodes said. “I just hope that people give the 13 year old girl the same sort of support because she needs it, her family needs it, and the people around them need it. It’s not a witch-hunt, I don’t want people to go after this young girl. We’ve just got to help educate society better so it doesn’t happen again.”

Goodes said that Victoria Police asked if he would like to press charges but he declined, reiterating that the girl needs to learn why her abuse was hurtful.

“It’s not her fault, she’s 13, she’s still so innocent, I don’t put any blame on her,” he said. “Unfortunately it’s what she hears, in the environment she’s grown up in that has made her think that it’s OK to call people names. I guarantee she has no idea right now how it makes people feel to call them an ape.”

Mature way to handle the situation, most people would say. In the eyes of racists, it was the beginning of a shitstorm of incredible proportions. Unfortunately for Goodes, he continued being black despite the booing of white people.

Perhaps he should have stuck to something… whiter? Like the ‘Bus Stop’, or the ‘Nutbush’?

When the Indigenous Round came around again in 2015, Goodes decided to perform a ‘war dance’ after kicking a goal for his side (that’s like scoring a touchdown for you Americans). Shouldn’t be a big deal, right? Indigenous round, he does an indigenous dance when his team is winning? Okay, yeah?

Not if you’re a white person who has decided when it’s okay (and not okay) to be a black fella. See, apparently Adam missed the memo on the appropriate time and place to show his culture. Silly guy thought that during an Indigenous Round was the right time. Crazy, right? He should have known that just calling it the Indigenous Round was enough culture for the bogan whities.

To top off the uncomfortable feelings he gave them, the war dance was ‘aimed’ at fans of the opposing (losing) team. Throwing an imaginary spear at them obviously constituted an act of racism on his part. White people really hate it when you throw imaginary spears at them. Perhaps throwing overt insults at their race is more appropriate.

This brings us up to speed. Goodes is getting booed every time he touches the ball during the game. We’re not talking ‘he gets booed when he scores’, I mean it. Every time he touches the ball. The racists refuse to accept their racism (what else is new), even when they yell things like “Get back to the zoo”. Definitely not at all racist. No, Sir!

This picture has nothing to do with the post, but isn’t it adorable?

The endemic problem here ironically isn’t with the racists. It’s with those who are standing beside them.

The racists are almost a lost cause. They’re dicks, and they’ll continue to be dicks. I support campaigns to try to get them to be less dicky, (or less publicly dicky), and to teach their kids not to say the shit their parents do – but in the end, they’ll be racist dicks until they learn not to be. It hurts my heart, but I’ve resigned them to the list of anti-vaxxers who ‘research’, climate change deniers, and people who think it’s totally okay to talk during a movie.

The truly heartbreaking stories are those who boo Adam Goodes for other reasons. He’s a bit of an arrogant cock, so it’s not like everyone is going to love him. There are lots of non-racist reasons people may choose to think he’s an asshole – Maybe they don’t like his team. Maybe they don’t like it that a footballer won Australian of the Year over ‘more deserving’ people. Maybe they don’t like him begging for free kicks (think penalties, Americans). Maybe they think he’s an arrogant tosser. Plenty of reasons to dislike him, plenty of reasons to want to join in the boo-fest.

But if you do, you’re siding with the racists.

I know. This seems like one of those stupid politically correct issues where you can boo literally anyone else on the field, but if you boo this guy you’re a racist (or you’re siding with them). I hate it too, but hear me out.

I’ve spoken before about the casual use of ‘rape’ in conversations and in jokes. Essentially, I believe that – like in football – most people are good people. I believe most people are not rapists. I believe most people believe staunchly in consent and looking out for the best for their partner. I believe most people respect vulnerable groups and try to protect them where possible. I truly do.

I also believe most football fans aren’t racists, don’t believe in racist principles, and wouldn’t boo someone for something as stupid as an indigenous dance during an indigenous round of footy. Most people.

But when we (as non-rapey types) tell rape jokes, we’re telling the rapists listening that we secretly feel the same way. We secretly believe that women want it when they’re drunk. We secretly believe that rape is just ‘surprise sex’. We secretly agree that no really means yes.

Given the statistics on rape, if you’ve told rape jokes before, I can basically guarantee you that you’ve said them to someone who actually rapes people. You’ve giggled about ‘surprise sex’ with someone who actually believes it.

You’ve sided with a rapist, without even knowing you’ve done it. Makes you feel kinda sick, hey?

Yes, that includes you, rape-survivors-who-tell-rape-jokes-to-cope-with-what-happened. I’m not going to judge your coping mechanisms, but you’re telling rape jokes to people who did the shit someone else did to you. You’re telling rape jokes to people who think it’s okay to rape people. Like I said, I’m not going to tell you to stop – but maybe, just maybe, you should reconsider your choices if your coping mechanism actually confirms to other rapists that their beliefs are correct.

Now, I don’t believe in policing what other people can and can’t say. I do believe that just because you can say it doesn’t mean that you should. I also think that if you’re saying things that make rapists feel validated and make rape victims feel like shit, perhaps you should think about whether or not you’re a good person.

If you boo Adam Goodes whenever he touches the ball, you are unconsciously siding with the racist fucks in the stands.

When  you join in, they hear ‘See, other people think his war dance was inappropriate too! Go be black somewhere quiet!’.
When you join in, they hear ‘The stolen generation doesn’t exist and other people believe it too!’.
When you join in, they hear ‘His success is because of white people, he should be thanking us – and look at everyone who agrees!’.

When you join in, you are validating their racism, whether you’re intending to do so or not.

It’s not fair. It’s not fair that you can’t giggle at rape jokes even though you’d never hurt someone, just because other people do. It’s not fair that you can’t boo an arrogant flog because other people are doing it because he’s black and not ashamed of it. No part of it is fair.

Rather than joining in booing Goodes, take a step back. Speak your mind on how bullshit racism is in Australia right now. Make the idiots booing him for shit reasons stop, so you can go back to doing it because he’s a Swans player and stole the Brownlow from someone you preferred. Call people out when they use ‘I’m not racist, but…’, because whatever follows is inevitably racist.

‘… but I really think Aborigines should just shut up and stop complaining, I didn’t steal their children!’

Side with good, because the only other option right now is to side with people who genuinely believe that Aboriginal people are less-than, or shouldn’t celebrate their culture. You’re siding with people who genuinely believe the Indigenous Round is stupid, because football was made up by white men. You’re siding with Reclaim Australia without even knowing it, and that fucking sucks.

You shouldn’t have to factor in the reasons other people around you are doing things, but that’s the reality of living in a community. If you manage to weed out the people being shit, you can go back to your questionable humour and your booing without being considered a racist or a rapist or a woman hater.

Eradicating shit behaviour frees you, it doesn’t restrict you. Side with good.

#IStandWithAdam

Love is disposable – and so are you.

“I’ll love you forever…”
“… I’ll like you for always.”

I’m not the only parent who snuggles their babies and finishes that sentence with them. When my girls were little, it was almost a mantra in our house. I said it when they drove me up the wall. They said it when I made them finish dinner before dessert. It was our reminder that no matter what, we would always be there for each other.

Our children learn about love from their parents. If they’re lucky (and so are we), they wind up with two parents, happily wed (or something similar) and providing a solid foundation for healthy relationships for the rest of their life.

It doesn’t always work out that way, particularly with nuclear families becoming less and less common. It’s not unusual for a child to have three or four sets of grandparents. It’s not uncommon for them to wave goodbye to a sibling for a week of the school holidays because they don’t share the same mother.

Children adapt, and provided they are shown unconditional love and help with sorting out their emotions, they thrive.

One of the greatest challenges of single parenting is dating. Very few of us are content to spend our years alone, especially when those years contain night after night of ‘But I wanted the yellow spoon!’.

It’s easier to cope with single parenting when you’re… not single.

Even if your new partner doesn’t help with the raising of your children, it helps to feel like you’re not in it alone. It’s not all sunshine and lollipops, though. There are endless considerations to make when deciding whether you should date, who you should date, and how they’ll fit into your lives – yep, lives. It’s not just about you anymore when you have a kiddo.

In a lot of ways, your new partner will eventually have to ‘date’ your children as much as you. They will need to form their own kinds of bonds. They will need to get to know each other and learn to trust each other. They will need to set boundaries around their relationship.

The relationship your children have with a new partner is just as serious as the one you have with them, if not slightly moreso. This other person is helping your children form their concepts of healthy relationships, and reaffirm what love looks like. Whether they’ve signed up for raising your child is irrelevant. They’re contributing to their preconceptions of the world now. This is serious business.

There’s a fair amount of debate of when the ‘right time’ is to introduce your children to your new partner. A lot of it winds up coming down to convenience. Single parents often just don’t have a lot of spare time outside the home, and if you want to see your new partner more than one evening a week, they might have to come home for dinner eventually.

Sometimes it’s a matter of pride. ‘Look at this beautiful child I made! I’m good at the fertility thing! Success is mine!’. That’s fine too, in its own way. Who isn’t proud of their children? Seeing yourself reflected in a tiny person’s eyes is amazing, but there’s more than a little ego buffing when someone else notices it too. As an added incentive, it’s a nice touch. On its own? Your child isn’t a trophy. You don’t get to whip them out to oooh and aaah over how nice they are when it suits you.

Some children are more understanding than others when it comes to new relationships, and a portion of that comes back to how well you (and the other parent) dealt with the dissolution of the previous one. If they’re still not over the last relationship breakdown, they’re going to be less inclined to welcome a new adult into their life. Sometimes it’s a jealousy preference (‘I want my real dad!’), sometimes it’s a fear that the new person will also leave (‘Will she stay? Mommy left’).

It’s pivotal that relationship breakdown is discussed with children in terms they understand, and that they are given appropriate time and expression to cope with the feelings it brings up. Encourage it. They will have relationship breakdowns in their lives too, and teaching them to deal with them in a healthy manner at a younger age will prepare them for their own experiences.

So what happens when a new relationship goes south?

It can’t always be helped. It’s dating, after all. You spend time getting to know one another and find out if you’re compatible in the long-term. Most people would suggest keeping younger children (read: not teenagers) away from these early stages of dating. The success rates are often low, and younger children form attachments without the same logical understanding adolescents possess. It’s impossible to skip the getting-to-know-you phase, so damage control is your best bet.

There isn’t a magic number of dates, though, and often you have to play it by ear, taking each relationship on its own merits. Sometimes you’ll get it right and spare your children some heartache. Sometimes you’ll get it wrong, and they’ll attach to a jerkface before you see them for who they really are. Parenting isn’t an exact science. You’re going to get it wrong sometimes.

The important part is learning from  your mistakes. If you are the sort of person who flits from relationship to relationship, own your faults. Some people are more flighty than others, some work out what they want (or don’t want) early on and bail. Some people are ‘high maintenance’ and know that only a certain type of person can handle them in a relationship. If your relationships are all short, the common factor is you. It’s not going to suddenly change this time.

If your average relationship lasts less than 3 months, this might be you – and you might want to keep your kids away until you’re past the danger zone.

In a lot of ways, it’s like announcing you’re pregnant. When you get that positive test, you want to shout to the world that this wonderful thing has happened. If you’re someone who has a history of early pregnancy loss, you may elect to wait until the odds of miscarriage go down. If you’re confident in your body’s ability to carry the pregnancy through the first trimester, then you might announce it earlier – or tell close friends and family only.

If you find a great boyfriend, you’re going to want to tell everyone. That includes your children, who are likely the most special people in your life. If you have a history of early relationship break down, you may want to wait until you pass the point where they usually dissolve (3 months, for example). If you’re the sort of person who doesn’t really have month-long stints, you might be a better candidate for telling your friends, family, and children earlier that you have a special someone in your life.

Know who you are, your limitations, and your history. Own them.

Sitting in denial winds up hurting you and your family when you suffer yet another ‘loss’ a month in, when you and those around you have just started to get attached to the new member of your family. You may have the resilience to deal with another disappointment in your line of disappointments. It doesn’t mean that your child has the same.

When we bring new partners into the lives of our children, we set standards for what romantic love and healthy relationships should look like. We demonstrate to our children what love looks like. When parents flit from one partner to another, declaring love after a week and introducing their children, we teach them that love is disposable.

Children don’t have the same ability to logic out emotions as we do as adults. They look for patterns to make sense of their world. Usually, this works well. If their parents smile and care for them, smiling people become positive. If parents show fear around something, they assume they should fear it too.

If you tell your child that love is forever, but then openly change partners every 3 weeks, your child will believe that love is temporary and you cannot be trusted.

There is no magic date number before you introduce your children. You need to evaluate the maturity of your relationship (honestly), the maturity of your children, and your own history. You need to check in with your kids and see how they’ve coped with previous relationship breakdowns. You need to own your behaviour in relationships and recognise patterns.

“I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always… unless you’re someone I’m dating. Then I might cry for a week before I tell someone else I love them instead.”

Courage and Identity :: Who are you really?

I was going to start this, as I usually do, with a picture.

I wanted to show you the man who abused me for years. I wanted to give you a face to the stories I’ve shared of my rape and abuse. I wanted to be able to show you the monster serving two years, suspended, for aggravated serious criminal trespass (break and enter, with a mitigating factor). I wanted you to see.

But scrolling back through painful memories, looking for the right photo… there isn’t one.

There isn’t a monster in these photos. There is a man. A man my parents met, a father to my children, someone who did actually make me happy some of the time.

My monster is just another man to you.

Healing from trauma has been a lengthy process. Two and a half years in and I’m not sure I’ve really made much headway at all.

I still have multiple nightmares, every single night. Panic attacks are still common, even while I sleep. He’s on the other side of the country and I’m still terrified he’s going to show up here and kill me, or those I love.

Not unfounded fears, he’s seriously threatened to kill my partners before, and did try to kill me. Couldn’t prove it in court, but you don’t need to defend yourself with a knife against someone who doesn’t mean you harm.

The most difficult part of healing has been learning who I am as a person.

When you’re stuck in an abusive relationship (romantic, or otherwise), your abuser often steals your identity – cutting you away piece by piece until the person left is the one they’ve created. After his arrest, I had to pick up each piece and decide whether or not it was part of who I wanted to be, now that I had the freedom to be myself.

I was more scared in the six months proceeding his arrest, than in the six months previous. Even ignoring fear of retribution, I had to work out who I was without the ‘guidance’ of the person who had controlled my life for five long years. It was terrifying.

I didn’t find all good things when I started discovering who I am. I find it difficult to be compassionate when I feel people aren’t trying hard enough. I’m impatient, argumentative, demanding. I struggle daily with motivation, even with my depression under control.

We are all good and bad parts, even those of us who get the opportunity to create ourselves again.

In building myself, I’ve discovered core parts of my identity that I’ve wanted to shout out to the world. Those ‘eureka!’ moments you get at work, or when your plot just falls together, or the food you’re making just sings in your mouth? When things just… work.

I have some incredible people in my life. These people have suffered through two and a half years of my excited squealing when a new part of me is born, another part of my life reclaimed. If you think you’re ‘over’ coming out stories in the news, spare a thought for my loved ones who have pretty much had two years straight of those moments.

Living your life with a commitment to being authentically yourself, while caring and protecting others, is scary. It’s difficult. You don’t always get the balance right, and someone gets hurt – if you’re lucky, it’s you.

It takes an immense amount of courage and inner strength to reclaim who you are as a person after living for so long in the mould that others have decided for you.

For some, it’s coming out and sharing their sexuality or gender with those around them.

For others, it’s bucking expectations and remaining unmarried or childless.

For me, it was finding out who I am, and having the bravery to try to face that new person every day.

As Caitlyn Jenner embarks on her new life journey, she will find herself discovering things she loves about herself, and things she really dislikes.

Discovering and living who you really are is a difficult enough road to walk with the support of others.

It is infinitely harder when people drag their biases about who you ‘should’ be to the table.

The next time you think you are entitled to someone else’s identity, remember that a man once thought he was entitled to mine, too.

You can help those around you to live a compassionate life that reflects who they are…

…or you can make it harder for everyone.

Who are you really?

The Problem With Equality

Let me first preface this with a trigger warning for abuse. If you have issues triggered by discussion of gender-specific violence, you may wish to skip this particular post. I wish you well in your healing.

You Are Not Perfect

Go to the sportsball! Do things you love! Live your moments with intent. If you love something, you want it to grow and expand and improve. Your body is no different.

A friend linked to this article on fat-shaming and calling out our support of unhealthy behaviours in the name of loving our ‘fat, fabulous bodies’.

To make it clear, I don’t endorse the comments made in the linked article. I don’t believe that being morbidly obese is a choice for the majority of people. If it was a choice, it has probably ceased to be one by the time their weight has reached those extremes. Morbidly obese people often feel trapped in a cycle of eating, sedentary behaviour, and lack of ability to exercise because they are so overweight.

Have you ever tried to run, carrying 200kg? It doesn’t work particularly well. When you reach extreme weights – which is becoming more and more common – it can be very hard to turn back, even if you want to. It doesn’t mean staying morbidly obese is the best stance, but it ceases to exist as a ‘choice’.

Fat people know that they are fat. We don’t need to point it out to them. The more overweight they are, the more they realise the consequences of their extra pounds. They get it.

They know that they’re far more likely to have cardiovascular issues. They know that if they don’t have type 2 diabetes yet, it’s just around the corner. They know that they’re likely to wind up with skin ulcers and edema and breathing problems. They know they’re headed for a very large, early grave.

The last couple of years have seen a surge in body acceptance movements. It’s great. There are lots of things you can’t change about your body, and hating the body you’re in isn’t a great way to spend the 80 or so years you’re hanging around on this planet. 

I had an eating disorder for several years as a teenager and young adult. What ultimately changed my life was accepting who I was and what I looked like. I will always be 5′ even. I will always be petite. I will always have small boobs and little feet. I will always have a cowlick that prevents me from having 90% of hair styles.

And that’s okay.

The body acceptance movement has gone a few steps further to specifically work on and call out fat-shaming. The fat acceptance community encourages people to love their bodies as they are, embracing their voluptuous curves, their butt dimples, their under-bra rolls.

In simple terms, fat acceptance is fantastic. Like the rest of the body acceptance movement, loving who you are makes for happier people. Believing that you are deserving of love and respect is only a good thing. Hating who you are because of what you look like creates poor relationships, bad working conditions, and a lot of despair. It sucks.

But have we gone too far?

Somewhere we lost the primary message of loving our bodies. We crossed into dangerous territory, advocating that we’re perfect just as we are. We don’t need to change, and anyone who suggests that we do is toxic and needs to be removed from our lives. They aren’t happy with our messages of self-love.

This is bullshit. You are not perfect.

We should be spending our entire lives trying to do better, be better. 

We apply this to our careers. We continue to work our way up corporate ladders, we push for our ideal jobs, we try to create amazing projects that are better than the last. In our professional aspect, we continue to improve and grow. Why does that not apply to our bodies?

This has nothing to do with weight. Though the article that spurred this post is about fat acceptance and fat shaming, this issue is wider than our overweight community. This is about all of us. 

This is for our severely underweight, who believe their way to self-improvement lies in collarbones and bikini bridges.

This is for our genetically blessed, who have never made the choice to stay at an average weight, who eat what they like and the most exercise they get is walking around their office at work.

This is for our chubbies, who have just managed to learn that they deserve love and respect – not despite their size, but because of it.

This is for all of us.

You are not perfect, but you don’t have to be.

Your only aim needs to be a more perfect version of yourself.

We should be spending our lives trying to be healthier. Not because we’ll love ourselves more if we are, but because loving ourselves means treating our bodies like they’re meant to last.

We should be forming good relationships and nurturing our friendships, surrounding ourselves with positive social outlets. Our social health is important and requires work.

We should be eating better for our needs. Try to maintain a weight that lengthens your life, not shortens. Prepare food that you actually enjoy eating. Meals shouldn’t be a chore, they should be an adventure in nutrition – finding new things that we enjoy that also improve our health. Eat more fresh. Buy less overly-processed foods. Experiment. Eat enough to provide the energy to explore the world, but not so much that you hinder your exploration dragging around weight you don’t need.

We should be practicing good self-care, prioritising our needs. Selfishness is important and should be used in moderation, not ignored completely. Have a cup of tea while sitting in the shower. Buy yourself a nice coffee and sit and read for an hour in quiet. Dance around your kitchen while singing to Taylor Swift. You need to take care of yourself to take care of other people, which we should also be prioritising. There are opportunities to make the lives of other people better in small ways, and we should be looking for them.

We should be exercising regularly, with a range of activities. Your entire body is important. Exercise improves mood, sleep, concentration. You feel better when you knows you’ve achieved something, even if it’s just your iPod reminding you of your new personal best. Go for a run, or join the couch to 5k. Run the City to Surf (or skip, or walk). Swim. Get a skipping rope. Join a casual sports team. Sign up for an adult beginner’s dance class. Take a martial art. Don’t be afraid of starting something new and looking silly – everyone has to start somewhere. Your body will thank you.

You shouldn’t be improving your body because you think people will love you more. You deserve love regardless of what you look like. You deserve respect regardless of the number on the scales.

If you love something, take care of it. Nurture it. Encourage it to grow and be a better version of itself, a version that will last longer and feel better.

Don’t just exist, actually live.

You are not perfect, but you can be a more perfect version of yourself.

Loving your body doesn’t mean ignoring your health. It means prioritising it.

Start truly loving yourself today.

I joined cheerleading again, after 10 years off. Training kicks my butt, but I love it so much. Few things feel better than doing things that are good for my body.

1 in 5, 1 in 20 :: You Were Not Raped

Let me first preface this with a trigger warning for sexual abuse, particularly childhood. If you have issues triggered by discussion of child sexual assault or abuse, you may wish to skip this particular post. I hope you manage to find solace. It was not, and never will be, your fault.

If the topic is merely ‘unpleasant’ for you (as I would hope for most of society), it’s an important read. Sometimes we need to feel uncomfortable when reality is presented. It’s the only reason things change.

Fuck You, Cancer Patients.

When you say ‘fuck you’ to vaccines, you’re also saying ‘fuck you’ to our most vulnerable: Those with cancer, chronic illness, auto-immune diseases, the elderly, and the newborn (‘the nearly dead and the newly bred’).

” If you have faith in vax then why would you care if i am unvaccinated. You have your disease armour on.”*

When discussing vaccination, this kind of quote isn’t abnormal. In one phrasing or another, it’s sitting in the comments section of every news article, in every facebook post about immunisation rates. It may wear different faces, but it always comes down to the same thing – If you love vaccinations so much, why don’t you just go get them? You’re not going to get sick if you think they work so well. 

It must be fantastic to be more afraid of the ingredients in vaccines than spending time in the ICU.

It must be fantastic to have the luxury of being able to fall sick with a preventable illness and not be reasonably terrified of it taking your life or leaving you with permanent disability.

It must be fantastic to not have a conscience to protect those who cannot wear ‘disease armour’ themselves. I’m sure I’d be much happier if I was only thinking about my own wellbeing.

I am one of the minority who do not benefit directly from vaccines. While I diligently get my boosters and receive my influenza jab every year, I have an inadequate immune response. That means that even though I do the right thing, I’m frequently not protected by my body’s ‘disease armour’.

Unfortunately I was born with a connective tissue disorder that looks a lot less like armour, and a lot more like wearing cardboard boxes covered in aluminium foil.

Last year I caught two different strains of the flu *and* had my flu jab. There was nothing more I could have done to protect myself. I was hospitalised twice from influenza alone. We raised my asthma medication to triple the previous dose. I didn’t even have asthma until I caught influenza in 2012.

I still receive my vaccines in the off-chance that one of them works and protects me and others from something that can be prevented. If I catch a preventable disease, I could die. No hyperbole. I could die.

Your fear of trace levels of chemical crap may actually kill me. Dead. Not coming back. My children too, as they have the same condition that I was born with. We could actually die because you have unscientific concerns about ingredients that aren’t even in current vaccines.

It’s all well and good to say ‘If you love vaccines so much, you go get them so you’ll be protected!’, but not all of us can be that egocentric. Some of us recognise that we are nothing if we don’t function as a community. Unless you’re planning on living in the middle of nowhere, entirely self-sufficient (including medical requirements), then you have a responsibility to the community that supports you.

It doesn’t matter if you homeschool your kids. It doesn’t matter if you avoid the doctor. It doesn’t matter if you live on a farm. If you come into contact with people outside your household, you have a responsibility to your community to avoid contracting and transmitting infectious diseases.

You have a responsibility to make sure you pass on as few diseases to other people as possible. People get sick, it’s just a ‘thing’, but we have harm-minimisation strategies to protect our community – particularly our most vulnerable.

You wash your hands. You don’t smoke in the car with children. You dispose of asbestos safely. You stay away from home and school if you have a bug. You immunise.

You don’t do these things for *you*, you do them for the benefit of others. If a disease only affected you, it wouldn’t be a problem. For as long as our communal healthcare supports you, and for as long as diseases pass freely between people, it’s a societal issue. Not a personal one.

If you can be charged with knowingly passing a deadly sexually transmitted disease to someone unaware of your health status (like infamous AIDS transmission cases), we should be seriously talking about accountability for those who expose vulnerable people to preventable illnesses. While it’s not feasible to prosecute in the majority of cases (it’s very hard to prove who passed whooping cough to a newborn), there may be an argument made for parental negligence in failing to immunise.

People can actually die based on your personal choices. Real people. Real death.
People who are too young to be immunised yet.
People who have allergies to the contents of immunisations.
People who have auto-immune diseases, or cancers, or take immunosuppressant medication.
People who, like me, receive little direct benefit from vaccines.

“why emotionaly blackmail me to buy medical products that could make me very sick. The seed of profit and deniability. If you break something like a person it costs allot of money to repair it.”*

Medical products that could make you very sick? Even if that was true (and it’s not unless you’re one of the tiny fraction of people with reactions more adverse than the disease itself), not getting vaccines will make other people sick and not everyone has the choice to immunise.

If it were only stupid people who caught polio these days, I’d be all for it. It would be a tax on stupidity, selective breeding at its best. Only those able to think critically would survive, and so society would be one generation more science-savvy. We’d have some generally misguided people caught up in the casualties, but we can’t protect people from themselves forever.

But it’s not just ‘crunchy mamas’ and people who think Monsanto are literally the Anti-Christ.

Your selfish behaviour harms other people, and not just random strangers either.

It harms the very people you should be trying hardest to protect in our community.

It harms our babies, it harms our elderly, and it harms those who already have significant chronic illnesses.

Your behaviour doesn’t target those with immune systems strong enough to fight off preventable diseases. Instead you are actually specifically endangering those least likely to survive. You’re adding extra risk to someone who is already getting dealt the short end of the health stick right now.

When you refuse to immunise yourself and your children, you’re flipping the bird to the most vulnerable members of our communities. Not to the people most likely to survive your backwards thinking, but to the people most likely to die or become disabled as a result of your poor choices.

You’re saying: “My irrational fears that are not grounded in science are more important than your life.”

You’re saying: “It’s your fault if you get sick, not mine.”

You’re saying: “I can do something to help our most vulnerable, but that’s someone else’s problem.”

You’re saying: “Finding cures to serious diseases is really important, but I’m not going to help you survive preventable illnesses.”

You’re saying: “Hey sick people? Your need to avoid illness that can kill you isn’t as important as my need to potentially get sick with something that can be prevented.”

You’re saying: “Fuck you, cancer patients. Fuck you, newborn babies. Fuck you, transplant patients and auto-immune disease sufferers and people with allergies and serious adverse reactions.”

You’re saying: “I rate a miniscule risk to my health higher than a very real, very high risk to our community’s most vulnerable.”

You’re saying: “I’m selfish.”

Please don’t try to support me with empty platitudes. Get yourself immunised this flu season and do something about it. If you truly want me to be well and stay well, please help by checking to make sure you’re up to date on your immunisations, and getting the flu jab before the flu gets to you. 

Australian flu season starts soon. The government-subsidised influenza vaccine is available from April 20 (that’s 2 weeks or so away). While it won’t protect you from everything, you will be helping to improve your own chances of staying well, and mine too. For more information on the influenza vaccine, click here.

* Quotes taken from a user commenting on an ABC article on vaccination. These are actual quotes, verbatim. Sad, hey? 😦

I saw 50 Shades of Grey and I was appalled – but not for the reasons you think.

Content contains swearing and adult themes. Read at your own risk. Also contains potential spoilers for the movie and the book, though more is spoken about general themes. I’m not spoiling anything you haven’t already heard on the internet in rants by armchair internet kinksters.

Bad Feelings Monster vs Good Feelings Unicorn

My facebook feed has been little but negativity these past few days. I don’t know if it’s something in the weather, or if people are stressed about going back to school, or it’s been just a little bit too long since the last holidays. Whatever it is, people aren’t happy.

You’re chronically sick and the world just doesn’t want to cut you a break. You can’t find work and every asshole employer wants experience for an entry-level job to get experience. Your relationship isn’t working and you’re starting to believe true love is all bullshit. Nothing is going your way, and you’re at the bottom of a great big hole filled with poop. Life sucks.

I get it. Trust me, I do. My body is permanently broken – it’s not going to get better. It’s going to slowly get worse until science makes me a robot body (letting the team down, science! Hurry up!). I have ‘bad’ days and ‘worse’ days. My scale is between ‘everything is spiders’ through to ‘I’m awake’. That’s literally as good as it gets. I can’t digest food because my body hates me, and my joints won’t stay in their sockets. I get it. Life sucks.

I am not immune to sulking on facebook, so when I say ‘negativity doesn’t work’, I’m not up on some shiny pedestal of positivity. I’ve been there too.

But you know what doesn’t make life suck less? Reminding yourself of how much it sucks. You get it, I get it. The universe is screwing you over. Take 5 minutes, have a cry, then stop dwelling on how bad everything is. Thinking about how awful your life is doesn’t make you feel better, does it? Of course not. It makes you feel worse.

If your life has sucked for awhile, someone would have reminded you about the ‘power of positive thinking’. If your life has sucked anything like mine has, you would have positively wanted to punch them in the throat. “Think happy thoughts” is the last thing you want to hear when you feel like you’re sitting on a throne made of turds – Ruler of a land of shit.

But that throat-punching guy? Hate to tell you, but she has a point. You know it too, even if you don’t really want to admit it. Concentrating on how terrible your life is will only make it feel more terrible. It never makes you feel better about it.

It’s time to stop feeding the monster that is Depression, or Anxiety, or just regular plain old Bad Feelings. It’s time to start saying “yes” to behaviours that improve your mental health and wellbeing, not make your life harder. It’s time to feed the Good Feelings Unicorn instead of the Bad Feelings Monster.

We teach this to little kids. Maybe it’s time you revisited it, too. Remember to be kind to yourself as well as others.

So, it’s time to stop and think before you post on facebook. Sometimes you need to vent about the things you’re struggling with, and that’s okay. It’s important to talk about uncomfortable feelings. It’s important to let people know if you need help. It’s important to know that your thoughts and feelings are valid… but it’s also important that you take care of you. Part of taking care of you is not feeding the Bad Feelings Monster with your negative facebook posts. Take a look at your last month of posts (not links, posts). What are the general themes of your posts? Are they largely positive, or negative?

These are my most recent posts to the group. I didn’t edit out anything – this is it, my life on display to you. My group was to keep people informed about my illnesses, all of them potentially life-threatening. If I can manage this positivity, you can find it too.

I am not immune to criticism. I have my moments – whole weeks where I struggle to drag myself out of the black pit of despair. I spent nearly two months in hospital, living for the next meal time to puke up and cry. My arms are scarred from blood tests every single day of my admission, and I still can’t go out for a romantic dinner on Valentine’s Day with my boyfriend because my stomach sucks at being a stomach.

Don’t feed the Bad Feelings Monster. It doesn’t need any extra help. Deciding to feed the Good Feelings Unicorn can be the harder decision, but who wants to encourage the monster to grow?

But you know what? Looking at my own positive posts makes me feel better. It makes me feel an awful lot better than every single one of those being about how much I hate my life. I look at those posts for a moment I can honestly believe that I’m happy. Other people’s happiness at my happiness just buoys me up, and I float along on this constant trail of positive thinking.

It helps. It doesn’t always help straight away, but if absolutely nothing else, you’re starving the Bad Feelings Monster. You’re not feeding it, you’re not giving it reason to stay around.

When I talk positively about my day, I’m saying “yes” to wanting life to be better. I’m actively working at it, even if the universe is working against me. I’m still pushing. I’m still trying to feed my Good Feelings Unicorn even when I feel like I’m all out of Unicorn Poptarts or whatever it is they eat. Glitter, maybe. Whatever it is, I’m out of it – but I try. If nothing else, I’m starving the Bad Feelings Monster. Jerkface is on the ‘only air’ diet as far as I’m concerned.

No matter how high your turd throne is, you can find little pieces of life to enjoy every single moment of the day. Pause for a minute. Stop worrying about Future Rori’s problems. Stop dwelling on Past Rori’s mistakes. Present Rori has only one job – to exist.

Right now, I could be focusing on all the things in my life that suck. I’m still digesting fruit puree I ate 5 hours ago, and that’s making me nauseous and hurty. My joints aren’t behaving. I have random skin splits on my calf. I’m a little hot because the vasoconstrictor meds aren’t so great at temperature regulation. I’m worried about uni and ballet and girl guides coming up. I’m worried for a friend going through a break up, and I’m worried about my own relationship.

I have the sweetest kitten. If it’s possible to have a soulkitty, I have found her.

But you know what else? Right now the weather is nice and there’s a pleasant breeze. My cat has been giving me cuddles. I found out I’m going to get a chance to be a Brownie leader. I’m making plans for exciting things to do on the weekend. I have my partner and my best friend at home, and they’re both concerned for my safety and happiness. I have a glass of water on my desk so I don’t have to run out to the kitchen. My meds are nearby. My wrist is healing well. I have the most supportive group of friends a girl could ever want.

There is happiness and beauty everywhere.

You just have to say “yes” to it more often. Start with your facebook. Pause and THINK before you post.

Don’t feed your Bad Feelings Monster. He’s a jerk who doesn’t care about you. His hugs are suffocating and he doesn’t want you to see any of your other friends. He wants all your attention and he likes it when you cry. Every time you post about something you hate, about how shitty your life is, about how things are never getting better… He grows. Quit it.

Give your Good Feelings Unicorn a hug and commit to feeding it regularly. Your unicorn is your own personal cheer squad. It’s your source of inspiration and motivation. Your unicorn loves you enough to encourage you to go out and do the things you dream about, and see your important people. Your unicorn knows that you have the strength to get through another day, and that it’s worth doing.

You have the power to decide who wins.

Feed the right one.

I look forward to a different facebook feed tomorrow.