Posted on by Michael Austin

2010 Olympics – Ireland Unification

The best memory I have of the Vancouver Olympics was opening night when myself and a bunch of Irish work colleagues (lifties), were waiting in line at Tapley’s after a shift on Whistler mountain, about to watch the opening ceremony. The mood was electric, people from all nations were just excited to be there. We were talking shit while waiting when a 6’5 American college jock who was behind us in the line, asked us jovially where we were all from. My mates were all from Cork, I was wearing my Wallabies jersey but decided to have a bit of fun and slightly slur my words and proclaim I was from Cork as well. The lads found it hilarious, the American was none the wiser. As the banter continued, the American sought to bring forth something he learned in a college history course and started talking about the division between the north and south. My mate’s weren’t having none of the lectures, and before too long probably the shortest of the bunch, had the quite physically imposing young jock, pinned up against the wall, with the edge of a snowboard pressed against his neck.

The crowd separated things, and almost instantly the RCMP was there. Then, while the crowd was keeping things at bay, I had the great privilege being taken a side, my slur ceased and voice became slightly more okka. With my chest proudly donning the green and gold I told the RCMP that an American tried telling my Irish friends why they fought with the north, all the while having the American yelled out “don’t listen to that dickhead he’s Irish.” Needless, to say the RCMP helped the college jock move on, while we continued to have a great night watching the opening ceremony.

Let me say as an Australian (and I know I am disregarding the Originals here, apologies!): If England is our mother, Ireland is the father we never knew. We are not like the US with a bunch of Boston(ites?) loudly proclaiming their Irish. No 2nd generation Australian really claims their heritage too loudly (not in Queensland anyway). If you look at our culture, I believe it is hard to see any resemblance. Peter Garrett dances with his arms, and to be honest I can’t really name a prominent aussie song with a fiddle. Having said that we have a lot of infrastructure thanks to the Irish, and when ever I am overseas – if a pub is closing around me, I am usually dribbling with an intimate group and an Irishman is smoothing over all the shit I’m spewin.

So with that said; let me say Conor McGregor is a great! There is no doubt about that, he is the first to have two belts in the UFC, losses make him stronger, he took on the best boxer in the world on his terms, then took on arguably the best wrestler on his terms.

Words are words, and they all ways will be, and short of cutting tongues and hands they can’t be silenced, only tamed. But as soon as the man said “It’s only business” he became the same as a British Trooper in a tank. What will always reign supreme over words is honour bound actions, maybe not on any given day. But we all know it to be true.

I have no idea, why anyone outside of England would want a full sized Union Jack on their flag. But let me have the arrogance to say, the wars between protestants and catholics finished at least a generation ago.

Cease the day my brothers and unite! Then, maybe, we might be able to broker peace on the Korean peninsular.

Originally published on facebook.com on 10 January 2019.

Posted on by Michael Austin

Becoming Mental – A snapshot of my education and religion

I am a 30 year old, husband and father of one, who has been placed under the Queensland Mental Health Act. Recently I have taken to writing and posting on Facebook. I find it to be both therapeutic to write out my thoughts, as well as a fun interactive outlet with my mates. Some of my ramblings have been quite personal, and have probably left the majority of my Facebook friends wondering what the hell I am on about.

In this post I seek to provide a bit of a personal account, which I hope fills in some of the blanks for those reading.

At a young age I was identified as gifted in the disciplines of logic and problem solving, while somewhat stunted in reading and writing. The assessor was of the opinion that I needed to be challenged or else I would either become a “good boy” scared to make mistakes, or a “problem student” who would challenge authority.

In my first three years attending school I had compressed four years of learning, but I continued to be a problem student. I never graduated primary school, I ended up receiving a three week suspension while there were only eighteen days left of school. Yet, by the time it came for high school I had attended eight different schools in six years. If I wasn’t challenging the teacher directly, I was a year younger, new, and therefore often the target of bullying.

The final three years of primary school were the most stable for me, they were all at the one school. But they weren’t without trial.

Within a couple of months in year seven:
My father fell of his motorbike and had to be in traction for six weeks, unable to move from his hospital bed.
While he was in hospital my dog of about ten years died.
Then a close mate and peer Jerry died of meningococcal – I still remember breaking the news of his death to my father, I said it very matter of factly. It was the first time I had ever seen my father break down crying, I was then taught the importance of breaking hard news softly.
A few months later my mother’s father died in Canada.

High School was more stable for me, although during the first years of high school, very little in life mattered to me. For whatever reason my parents started forcing me to go to church, I continued to be a problem student, but managed to stay at the same school for four years, eventually I took the Christian faith on as my own. By the time the final year of school came along, a decision was made to have me repeat the penultimate year and go to a local state school. During this summer my mother, who had been facing her own demons attempted suicide (at the time I don’t think it had much of an affect on me, but looking at the mother-son relationship I have had since then, I must admit it caused some damage). So after about ten years I once again re-entered my age group, nothing I studied was new, but I had to navigate a new social scene and it gave me time to socially mature and start afresh.

I have always enjoyed philosophical and theological writings. The first ever philosophical morsel I picked up was as a young child, when my father read to me “Reach for the Sky” which is the story of a British WW2 pilot – Sir Douglas Bader. In it Sir Bader says “Rules are made for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools”.

As mentioned I became a Christian during the high school years, which for me meant no sex before marriage. At around the same time as I turned eighteen, my church dissolved through a messy democratic process. I have never found another that can compare, despite doing some searching.

I had never been drunk until I turned 18, which is the legal drinking age in Australia. I had tasted alcoholic drinks along the way just to understand the flavor, but had never indulged in the drug alcohol.

So over time, I lost my religion and became part of the world, but I never lost my faith. When you have experienced spirituality in such a real manner as I had, I don’t think you ever really can, you’re just conflicted.

So I continued to live a secular life, knowing these few things: I am a sinner, Christ died for my sins and I am forgiven, everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial, that faith without deeds is dead, God is love, and that we should fear God.

I also had personal beliefs taken from other philosophers outside of the Bible, like “whatever doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger” which is similar to “pain is just weakness leaving the body”, “truth is mighty above all things”, and “to truly know one’s self, you must know yourself within the other”. I also developed my own personal philosophy which I have come to believe along the way, “that people will be as weak as you allow/expect/believe them to be”.

My church was reluctantly an organised religion, we hated the term religious, because as you can see through out the progression of the Christian faith and all the reforming and division. Religion turns into dogma, an interpretation of God’s word proven at the time to be applicable by the fact that it received a large and persistent following (the purest form of a democratic vote), but at some point lost it’s way in routine or worse potentially became a version of thought control. We would rather use the term spiritual. We testified that we followed the One true God, believed in Christ the Savior, and were inspired by a personal Holy Spirit. And while all this was true, we still couldn’t get away from the fact that we were an organised religion.

What I have come to learn and respect about religion is that it values discipline. While I participated in a church I was extremely disciplined. I always sought God and strove for Christ’s perfection and managed to keep the dogma out of it.

So while at school, I never studied for tests – I didn’t actually understand what studying for a test was until, due to unfortunate circumstances within the family, I had to stay with another family for a while that forced me to sit down and study – and did not care about assignments only doing what was needed to get by, this is with the exception for a precious few that were inspired, most often by a mutual love and respect for the teacher. Despite this, I read and studied the Bible almost daily. I would commonly wake up early and ride a reasonable distance for a kid my age, on a fixed gear BMX, mostly uphill, to arrive at the church at 6 am to pray and seek God for an hour. Praying and seeking God meant several things to me: seeking forgiveness through Christ from God; expressing a desire for those we love to receive what they need from God; expressing a desire that God will help us understand our foes so that we can reach reconciliation; and, knowing God and ourselves better through revelation through meditating on what we have learnt through experience and study.

In my final two years of high school I was extremely privileged to be bestowed with the nickname Jesus. It didn’t sit right with me, however I came to accept it. I was like any Christian seeking personal perfection while trying to reduce evil. I also had a faith that God would provide me a wife, and therefore didn’t really seek to impress women, meanwhile I had been so hurt by the world and rejected by people within it, that I cared little for the aspirations the world commonly provided the individual. I also understood that no one is perfect and I sought to love the individual for their own uniqueness, always seeking the positive in everyone. Sometimes I couldn’t quickly identify any outstanding qualities, but as life moved on, these few people have impressed me the most.

I was blessed with an intellect that allowed me to cruise through school and most of University with little to no effort. This allowed me to pursue other activities.
I was blessed with a physical prowess that allowed me to perform physically amongst my peers with no extra curricular training, this allowed me to enjoy the fraternity and vent all my rage and practice violence in a socially accepted and controlled manner.
I was blessed to have music and be brought up with the internet where I could access it for free, whilst downloading it took long enough that you could form, appreciate and share your own curated collection.
I was blessed with a unique physical appearance (dreadlocks) that made me a general curiosity, despised by people that would hurt me at the time, and loved by people that would heal me and taught me the importance of personal presentation.
I was blessed to have a religion that was forced upon me which after much resistance at first, in time began to make sense to me both personally and logically.
I was also blessed to undergo incredibly harsh trials by today’s western standards at a very young age.

With these blessing I cruised through my Bachelors of Engineering, focusing more on partying and socialising than I did, on my studies or anything else. While my church had dissolved, I still maintained my faith. Yet overtime I made very deliberate choices to enter the secular world, based on the assumption, that if I must have a personal understanding of sin if I am going to be able to reduce it in anyway.

Like all of my pursuits so far in life, I have been unable to stay in an institution for any length of time. University was no different, with my Bachelors split up, by work experience and the Vancouver Olympics.

The discipline I had learnt in my youth however, has always persisted. Although for anyone who knows me it would be quite difficult to see. My discipline has always been a commitment to living a life worthy of Christ’s salvation. In my first year as a graduate, I was working full-time as a consultant engineer for a top tier consultancy, part-time within the Australian Army, studying part-time Masters course work in International Relations, while being a part of a corporate touch team, and volunteer chapters for Engineers Without Borders and Young Engineers Australia.

I didn’t have enough commitment to any one endeavor to excel at anything individually. But I was an active participant nonetheless. Eventually though, after burning the candle far too much at both ends, and working through a corporate atmosphere that was downsizing rapidly, I started to struggle.

In May 2013 I took myself to hospital, and my mental health career began.

Originally posted on facebook.com on 8 January 2019.

Posted on by Michael Austin

The Dark Knight – From The Perspective of a Crazy Man – Joker is the Hero

Let me start with something that shouldn’t be controversial. The Joker is Evil.
If I ask you why, you might say because he is a murderous psychopath, and while I would argue that the terms murderous and psychopathic are judgement and diagnoses which only a Judge and Doctor can make, it is of course fiction so l do encourage you to judge and diagnose.

But first let’s inspect the murder charge. The Joker is a killer, he is good at killing and he enjoys it and is experience to the extent of having a preferred weapon. He also encourages others to do it. Murder though is unlawful killing. The Joker is a self-declared anarchist not only through self professed beliefs, but though very deliberate actions. The Joker is an insurgent that is actively trying to remove the Government of Gotham, and is therefore in war with the Government, it is far more interesting to see how he would stand up as a war criminal.

I am sure Doctors would describe him as a psychopath, which even if you don’t really know the true definition of the diagnosis, you do know it is a mental condition and therefore you probably assume he should be locked up.

But let do a quick psychoanalysis.
What do we actually know about the Joker’s past in The Dark Knight?
We think we know how he got his smile, but then realize that he uses his captives curiosity against them. Telling them jokes designed to provoke both empathy, terror and hopelessness for his captives.
We know he decided to become the Joker after Bruce Wayne became Batman.
We know that he has no government record when he became the Joker. So he has either been a model citizen throughout the most hormonal and emotional years of a young man’s life, or hacked the government systems.

It is far easier for the model citizen to assume he hacked the government systems than to entertain that maybe up until Batman he was just like you and maybe even a better citizen. But if you think about it logically, while the Joker has a very deliberate attention to detail when it comes to his appearance, for the same reason Batman does. If an active anarchist with very little self interest, had the ability to remove his government records, he would also remove everyone else’s records at the same time.

So who is the Joker? If anyone who reads this post and even entertains the idea about becoming a Joker, please read on. A key tenet of the Joker is clear open and public communication, he lets his intentions known ahead of time when dealing with the public and gives people a clear unambiguous choice often with a deadline allowing the Government an opportunity to stop him. In the Joker’s opinion, the only way you can bring about anarchy is by directly confronting the individual with the choices they have to make if they want to have power over their own life while showing the people at the same time how powerless and useless the Government is at protecting them. The Joker forces the individual to choose between their own agency or the Governments.

How is he represented in the movie?
Some might argue he is the perfect villain or he is perfect insanity.
I argue he is the perfect man.
He cares about his appearance and understands that other people will react to him, accordingly.
He has enough strength to casually subdue men who rule by strength, while doing humorous magic tricks to earn their cohorts bemused respect.
The opening scene is a testament to his creativity and ability to relate to the individual showing them they are special and important to him, and to lend him their unquestioning trust.
He is a man of action, he has an agenda, based on firm beliefs and convictions which he is working towards.
The way the movie pan’s out, it can look like he predicted everything, but he is a self confessed agent of chaos that gives people choice and the opportunity to stop him.
He has an incredible understanding of the motivations of government officials and criminals, which allows him to accurately predict their actions most of the time.
He understands that chaos means anything can happen and therefore plans for most possibilities.
When the Government became proactive rather than reactive, they caught him. However, he had an escape plan that would have been in place from the very start.
He is a good business man and a good negotiator, he knows what he is worth and people have no problem paying him for his services.
He has no care for money or material possessions and only takes what he needs.
He is selfless and willing to die for what he believes in.
He also accepts that nature is cruel and does not let fear of unfortunate luck restrict his actions.
He is a man of his word and follows through on his threats.
He is a teacher, he seeks to show humanity what it really is, and understands the individual better than the average man understands them self.
He always enjoys his work, taking pot shots at armored vans with pistols while he waits for the real fun to begin.
He fails, but doesn’t let it defeat him – you can see the frustration when Jim Gordon jumps in front of a bullet that wasn’t meant for him.
He even apologizes in his own way and seeks forgiveness or due punishment, when he unexpectedly plays a part in the death of Rachel Dawes. – While Rachel did work for the Government, it is clear the Joker didn’t really expect her to die. She is the only non-combatant to die due to the Joker in the movie. (I would argue the Judge relies on combatants to enforce the rulings and therefore is indirectly a combatant).
He is learning and adaptable – He does not have a complete understanding of the human psyche, for example he was surprised in the boat scene. The innocent people knew what the correct choice was, which was demonstrated through democratic vote. However, no individual on the boat could bring themselves to kill the convicted criminals that had been terrorizing the City for years. They had been coddled by their government so much that no individual on that boat could defend themselves or the other innocents in a simple life or death scenario that required a twist of a key to act. This is despite it being both a carnal and democratic requirement if any individual had the ability to act.
He understands what God is and in turn loathes himself, welcoming and even wishing for his end. But he understands he has a purpose and knows that ending his life is not his decision to make.
Finally, the Joker understand that the issue at hand is so complex, he will be misunderstood and misrepresented and no one will even try to understand him. He understands the emotional reaction to the issue, but seeks to empower the people to break free from their fear not by looking outward but inward. He does this by trying to force the people into action by trying to force them to make simple but tough decisions.

So now that we know the Joker is arguably the perfect man, is he really an anarchist?.
I don’t think he is. He just hates Batman and everything he is.

People need hope, and they found it in the symbol of Batman. He provided progress, and shows them that there may be a better way.
Batman could be anywhere at anytime, he enforces judgment through catching criminals and leaving them for the Police to find. He is anonymous. He has financial and technological power that is beyond the reach of every other citizen in Gotham and its local government. He harnesses fear, and deliberately disorientates even his allies by disappearing mid conversation. He doesn’t care if you like him or not. He is also a vigilante, and believes through his benevolence and self imposed morals, he is above the law.

Batman is a symbol of a god, but in reality he is just a extremely privileged and flawed man in a suit. Anyone who plays god is dangerous. That is why the Joker hates him, seeking to destroy him and any system that supports him.

If the Bruce Wayne really believed in the symbol for what it is, he would believe that anyone can become Batman and fight for justice, making Batman even more omnipotent. But Batman doesn’t like his impersonators because they kill due to the fact that they are commoners that are less skilled and have less technology. We all long for a world free from death, but it is ignorant to believe we can create one and in turn work towards one. To not kill is a position of extreme privilege and ignorance. It is ironic that the only thing in this movie that we see damaging Batman, and in turn the only thing he shows fear of, is an animal of nature and man’s best friend.

So if Batman doesn’t believe in the symbol he created, what does he believe in? In this movie, to me it appears all Batman really wants to do is justify his existence. The Joker openly states that he will stop if Batman reveals his identity.

In my opinion the best joke the Joker pulls is killing the lesser Batman, painting his face as the Jokers and dressing him back up in their inferior Batman suits. Sending the ironically funny message to Batman that he is really just a inferior version of the Joker pretending to be a god. Unfortunately, Batman didn’t get the joke.

Why is Batman not the perfect man? He is ignorant to the feelings of those he loves and even choose not to save the one he loved due to an unfounded faith in another man. All the Joker wanted was for Batman to abandon his self-righteous ideals by killing someone, preferably himself, or quitting. In the end, the Joker got caught because Batman had the help of an omniscient power (Morgan Freeman), this was only made possible by violating innocent people’s privacy. By this stage the Joker didn’t care about being caught, people were starting to realize that in the pursuit of ideals they were making the problem worse. The Joker knew that his cause was bigger than one man. It was an absolute. In the end, Batman did break his one rule and killed Harvey Dent. Harvey was another idealistic flawed man who held closely the belief that he made his own luck. Once faced with reality that no man is truly completely in control of his destiny and must rely on other flawed men. He decided to seek justice, by following in the Joker’s foot steps and showing them how naive they had become. But instead of grappling with the complexity of an appropriate response, he chose to leave it up to equal chance with the options of complete forgiveness or death. The Joker knew the odds and would constantly play them putting himself and innocent people in danger to manipulate the situation to his advantage. What he never did was decide that an innocent should either die or live, and leave the decision up to equal odds. This is why the Joker failed to get himself killed, but succeeded in revealing that both an idol and a man playing god, are ultimately corruptible will fail and betray the very core beliefs that they think separates them.

So the Joker is Evil. He is the perfect man. But the reason the Joker is the Hero in this story is because he shows us what happens when we go outside the law and play god. Evil is an absolute condition of man, because man is not God.

So who was the Joker before Batman? It’s fiction so we can write whatever we want. If I was to write his prequel, it would be boring. He would be a good honest cop that tolerated his corrupt cohort and was married to a psychologist. They loved each other, and helped each other to perfect their craft, and through their shared perspective of Gotham, came to understand the true nature of man and their place in the world. He would be ordinary like any policeman. |Because he dealt with ordinary criminals, and ordinary government officials.

And then came Batman.

The Dark Knight is a story that reflects the tragic dichotomy of the human condition. We all love it for different reasons, but maybe we never knew why.

The true tragedy of this story of course, is that in the end the man who became the Joker, Heath Ledger did indeed die. His posthumous Academy Award, can attest to his perfection of the characterization.

The Joker knew how to exist in Gotham City, but he had no idea how to exist in a real western civilized society. He sought help, and was provided drugs that he had little to no experience with, from a Doctor that had probably never taken them himself.

We all know what happened, but who is to blame, the drug, the drug dealer, or the person seeking it in order to assist with the reality of life?

Disclaimer: I am looking at this movie in complete isolation of the entire DC Universe. I understand that most western men have probably at one stage in their life said “I am Batman”. We like him because we know his story, we feel his pain and share his desires. We imagine if we were in his shoes we would do the exact same thing.

The Joker is the same, we just don’t know his story.

The Christopher Nolan Trilogy is the story of man.
Batman Begins: A story of tragedy and rehabilitation through a dedication to the pursuits of personal perfection and the reduction of evil.
The Dark Knight: A complete war against evil and losing a key part of yourself in the process.
The Dark Knight Rises: Accepting humility and being content with oneself and the world through a union with an equal and worthy adversary.

Originally published on facebook.com on 16th December 2018

Posted on by Michael Austin

Australia Invasion Day – Reconciliation

An open letter for Senator Briggs and Prime Minister of Australia Scott Morrison,
CC: triple j

As representatives of both the Black Fellas and the White Fellas respectively, I ask you to resolve the issue of Invasion/Australia Day with the utmost urgency.

Thanks to Senator Briggs I feel as though I do have a small understanding of the issue, and hope that we can come to some reconciliation. While what it means to be Australian might be different, we have a common ground in the pride we share of our great land and those who came before us to make it great. If I am being honest I think there are a lot more important issues facing both the Black Fellas and the White Fellas than one day, and that focusing on a date is just a massive distraction from all of those significant issues that are a lot harder to solve and would require a lot more effort to address.

The reason why I have bothered to write this letter rather is because, as you may be aware, Triple J has moved the Hottest 100 to the January 27th. If I was under 25 and without child, I would be celebrating this move, because it would simply mean two days of back to back festivities.

However, I still remember sitting in the pool listening to my first Hottest 100 and “My Happiness” by Powderfinger coming in at number one. I was the not so ripe age of twelve. Many Hottest 100s have come and gone since that time, most I remember fondly. Some, like last years, I have no recollection of at all (probably had something to do with the news of my wife being pregnant and being in the process of changing jobs and moving back to Australia after three years overseas, this also explains why this letter is coming a year late).

Thus I am now 30 and am raising a little man that is currently three months old. While I am not sure my body could handle two days of Australian festivities without supplements, I am somewhat certain the Mrs wouldn’t let me even if the body would. Making a choice between commiserating Invasion Day/celebrating Australia Day and thoroughly enjoying the Hottest 100 is a dilemma that probably ranks as high as whether or not to go against the mother’s wishes when deciding if the little guy is beach ready (It is probably a bigger issue as the choice between the 26th and the 27th is one that will take a year until I can apply my lesson learnt and re-attempt the choice).

I understand that Triple J is talk back radio for the youth, and I rarely listen to it anymore (hate the format, love the music). But what it does for Australian Music is incomparable and Australia has so much musical talent to be proud of thanks to this station. For that reason, I am of the opinion that the Triple J Hottest 100 is for all Australians to enjoy, regardless of age.

Therefore with my position now known, I would like to provide a solution, not because I’m a expert or even because I feel super committed to the issue, but simply because I don’t like individuals or groups that expect other people to solve their problems without putting any prior thought into it themselves.

So my solution is: “Why not have both?” – we could call it Australia Invasion Day. Such a name does have its own issues though, we couldn’t say Happy Australia Invasion Day, as I feel that would be even more disrespectful than celebrating Invasion Day. However, I also feel that Commiserations for Australia Invasion Day, would also not be very palatable. We need a word that is uniquely versatile enough that it can evoke sufficiently positive emotions and/or negative emotions.

As Australia Invasion Day are all White Fella words, I think it would be quite fitting to use a Black Fella word. I understand that before the White Fella came, there were several languages within this great land, hopefully there is one with such versatility, and we could revive it and make it uniquely our own, similar to the way “Kia Ora” has been adopted as a greeting in New Zealand.

If there isn’t a Black Fella word that is sufficient, while I can’t think of any, hopefully there is a White Fella word we can use. It is my hope that this word will be so versatile that when a bunch of White Fellas get together they can say “Australia Invasion Day <insert word>!” in celebration, while a bunch of Black Fellas can get together and say “Australia Invasion Day, <insert word>!” in commiserations. And when the two great people get together or simply pass each other on the street they can say to each other solemnly with a nod of the head and a tip of the hat “Australia Invasion Day <insert word>”.

Hopefully overtime, the word could become synonymous with everything that is great and not so great about our country and we could proudly use the word as a post noun when stating where we are from.

That’s just my two cents. Of course there is another solution, Triple J could just move the Hottest 100 to the weekend before or after the 26th. I am sure we can all agree, consecutive weekend celebrations are a lot easier to get by the Mrs than consecutive days.

But please, Prime Minister Morrison, I would much rather have you remembered as the Prime Minister who facilitated the reconciliation of Invasion/Australia Day, than the Bradbury Prime Minister.

Originally published on Facebook.com on 11th December 2018

Posted on by Michael Austin

Introduction – Warning Triggers

Next Week is Queensland Mental Health Week, so in order to raise some awareness and hopefully help out anyone struggling with mental health I have decided to share some thoughts based on my experience and hopefully some lessons learnt.

I am not professionally qualified in mental health. I am not a psychiatrist, psychologist, nurse or councilor. However mental illness is a huge part of my life and I have international experience within the mental health system.
• I have racked up about four months as an inpatient and four years as an outpatient spread over three specific psychotic episodes.
• I have emotionally abused my parents and wife saying the most hurtful personal things I can think of.
• I have spent days in a padded cell.
• I have spent a week strapped to a bed.
• I have run up the main street of a city in broad daylight naked.
• I have robbed a man for cash.
• I have caused tens of thousand of dollars in damage.
• I have stolen and been stolen from.
• I have drunk a whole bottle of rum in the space of two minutes in an effort to pass out.
• I have operated for weeks on about 2-4 hours sleep a night.
• I have ‘spoken with god’ and ‘communicated telepathically’.
• I have been certain that I would be killed and that it would be framed as a suicide, I begged and made my bother promise to look after my wife after I was gone.
• I have broken out of hospital.
• I have wandered the streets aimlessly talking to myself.
• I have cried in despair at AA meetings and RSLs.
• I have charged down cars head on.
• I have been physically subdued by security for lying on a footpath, and had pain and damage inflicted to my body, meanwhile refusing to give any inkling of satisfaction to my subduer.
• I have propositioned men older than my father for the kindness they have shown.
• I have been falsely accused of making verbal sexual threats.

I have been broken.

Of course, this stuff is shameful, mental health is shameful. I share it for two reasons, one to explain my experience to the reader and the other to continue the healing process through openness and personal acceptance.
Having said this, there are also things I am proud of:
• I have never attacked a non-combatant.
• I have treated all security guards equally regardless of race, sex or size – this can be shocking considering I have reportedly broken a security guards ribs, and I have encountered female security guards that are about 30 kg lighter.
• While screaming every explicit I can think of and sprinting at the reinforced glass head first in a padded cell with the intention of knocking myself out, I never reduced myself to a racial slur when a large negro nurse came to take me down. I would have loved to have fought him but he came at me passively with a rugby tackle pad. Instead I called him Michael Vick as I felt like I was being treated like a dog.
• I never cheated on my wife despite roaming the streets with an uncontrollable erection and being propositioned by women.
• I never resisted arrest although I did try to avoid detection and to escape once detained.
• I have given the jumper off my back in the middle of winter.
• I have given away my last dollar, and I have been found wanting.

During the course of this illness I have held down a professional job, received promotions, married a beautiful, intelligent woman and brought a son into the world. I have also started a consultancy employing three people part time, moved continents and supported a mother in law.

I am now off the drugs, but I will never be “cured”.

The timing of this Mental Health Week is pretty pertinent, I will be turning 30, at the same time as I continue to operate on 2-4 hours sleep per night due to my newborn and try to hold together my mental capabilities and continue to work in order to support my family.

My wife is concerned, my parents are concerned. No one desires regression. We are all working together to make sure that doesn’t happen.

I used to think those seeking help were weak or those using drugs were pathetic. I believed drugs were a crutch and those using them were a burden on society.
It is not how we evolved. It is not how God created us.
I was wrong. Like a crutch, help is a tool that is necessary from time to time. But a crutch isn’t a fair analogy. Help is like suspension and each drug just a different technological advancement.
If you drive a car without suspension at any sort of speed, you’re going to have a bad time. High performance vehicles require advanced technology. A person can go off the grid or “get by” with no help or drugs, but they cannot perform to the level required to thrive by today’s high benchmarks.

Quitting for me is never an option. However, taking a break and seeking help is a must for all high stress situations. Differentiating between quitting and having R&R is extremely difficult for me, and I have worked myself insane.

Thus, through experience and trial an error I have come up with the bellow as a self-assessment check list in order to determine if I am emotionally compromised:
• If you have been unable to sleep for 48 hours – seek help
• If you have slept on average of 4 hours a night for over a week – seek help
• If you have publicly berated someone – seek help
• If you are having arguments with three or more separate individuals – seek help
• If you are breaking stuff – seek help
• If you are crying any time you are alone – seek help
• If you are feeling persecuted by everyone but have no proof – seek help
• If you are aggressively speeding – seek help
• If you are desiring a physical confrontation – seek help
• If you are having suicidal ideations but see light at the end of the tunnel – Keep going your doing a great job!
• If you are having suicidal ideations and you don’t see a light – seek help.

Seeking help means talking about your feelings/situation with another person. This is a must! For two reasons, they may have a solution you haven’t thought of, but more importantly, they will be your advocate if, god forbid, you end up in the system. Because once you are in, you have lost your free will and the system will no longer let you make decisions for yourself.
So what does help look like, I recommend sharing a drug (not abusing a drug), that can be a cigarette, a coffee/tea, alcohol, weed if its legal, anything that you and your helper enjoy. They must listen to you, get them to repeat what you said in their own words if need be. You must listen to them, if they are saying put tools down or seek a professional and you disagree, get a second separate opinion. If they too are saying the same thing LISTEN & OBEY!
Try as hard as you can to stay out of hospital, from my experience a psychiatrist’s job is not to help you optimally perform (optimisation always has a risk) their job is to make sure you don’t harm anyone else or yourself. They have seen a lot of shit, they are callous, they are allies with big pharma, and they have a very low tolerance for risk.
I am of the opinion that with the help of the internet, the educated individual is in the best situation to look after themselves, but you simply CANNOT do it alone. For no other reason than the fact that you need an advocate if you end up in the system for whatever reason. Think of it as an insurance policy.

Finally, asking for help. Once you get to the point of actively and deliberately seeking help. You cannot pussy foot around. Don’t post publicly or try and casually bring it up. Be deliberate and direct, select someone you trust and respect and start the conversation like this “Hi, hope you are well, I need help, can we catch up for a <insert drug of choice>?”. Simply asking to catch up is not good enough, if you trust and respect them, they will probably be busy in the first instance and when you do meet up, they will not pry into a place you do not want to go. If you start with I need help, they will most likely drop what their doing and patiently probe until you explain your situation. If you don’t have anyone, call a hotline.
I hope this helps those in need of help and prevents them from going through the same ordeal as I have had.
I hope this gives some hope to those that are in the system.
I hope this helps my family, friends, colleagues and health care professionals gain an insight as to where I have been and where I am at.
And most importantly, I hope I can follow my own advice!

Originally published on facebook.com on 4th October 2018