Experiencing Schizophrenia: a Novel and Exegesis Fiona Erica

Experiencing Schizophrenia: A Novel and Exegesis

Fiona Erica Nichols

Bachelor of Arts Honours (Writing), Edith Cowan University, 2010 Master of Arts (Writing), Edith Cowan University, 2013

This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The University of Western Australia

School of Humanities

English and Literary Studies

2019

THESIS DECLARATION

I, Fiona Nichols, certify that: This thesis has been substantially accomplished during enrolment in the degree. This thesis does not contain material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in my name, in any university or other tertiary institution. No part of this work will, in the future, be used in a submission in my name, for any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution without the prior approval of The University of Western Australia and where applicable, any partner institution responsible for the joint-award of this degree. This thesis does not contain any material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text. The work(s) are not in any way a violation or infringement of any copyright, trademark, patent, or other rights whatsoever of any person. This thesis does not contain work that I have published, nor work under review for publication.

Signature:

Date: 26/05/19

ABSTRACT

The novel Existential Skeleton explores the condition of schizophrenia through the experience of its protagonist. Having been diagnosed with schizophrenia, which is being managed with medication, the protagonist lives her life in the community. The narrative has been created to provide insights into various symptoms of schizophrenia (manifesting largely as eccentricities in language and thought-processes, as well as emotional and social difficulties). The novel dramatises the issues faced by people living with schizophrenia in the community and as such is a contribution to the nascent field of post-hospitalisation narratives about the condition. The accompanying exegesis contextualises the novel by discussing my own experience of being schizophrenic and through consideration of other literary accounts of schizophrenia. Serge Doubrovsky’s notion of autofiction is put forward as an underpinning writing methodology and attention is paid to the way the novel has been crafted to explore schizophrenia through a mixing of autobiographical detail and fictionalisation.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ………………………..…………………………………….. 2

Existential Skeleton ………………….………………………………………… 3

Afterword – References in Existential Skeleton …………………………… 116

Exegesis………………….………………………………………………………. 122

1 – Introduction……………………………………….…………….…………. 123 My Experience of Schizophrenia…………………………………. 123 Personal Experience of Emotional Blunting……………….……. 127 Suicidal Ideation and Self-harm…………………………….……. 129 Psychosis……………………………………….………………….. 131 Schizophrenic Thought-processes………………………………. 132 Music, Meaning, Identity…………………………………….……. 133

2 – Modern Literary Works about Schizophrenia …………………………. 135 Hospitalisation as a Phase of Schizophrenic Experience ….…. 135 Janet Frame ………………………………………….…….………. 136 Susanna Kaysen ………………………….……………….………. 142 Schizophrenia Bulletin’s Personal Accounts of Schizophrenia… 145 Existential Skeleton as a “Post-hospitalisation” Narrative………. 150

3 – Autobiography and Autofiction………………………………….……….. 155 Autobiography………………….……………………….…………… 155 Autofiction…………………………………….…………….……….. 160

4 – Crafting Existential Skeleton…………………………………….……….. 165 Schizophrenic Thought-Processes……………………………….. 165 Blunting and Anger……………………………………….………… 168 Honesty…………………………………………………….…………. 171 Identity………………………………………….………….…………. 172 Bethany……………………………………………………….………. 174 Mike……………………………………………………………………. 177 Intertextuality …………………………………………………………. 178

Conclusion ……………………………………………….……………….…… 181

Bibliography ……………………………………………………………….……. 183

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship.

Existential Skeleton (a novel)

I was reading the words of L’Etranger again and again: “Mother died today, or maybe yesterday. Je ne sais pas.” That’s it, my mother is dead. I feel relieved. Then Emanuel rang the other day. He said: “You know I will always love you, don’t you?” Like that means anything. He was down. I felt strange. I asked him: “Are you wanting space or wanting to break up?” He wouldn’t answer me. He’d been talking to his family. I should have figured as much. I get the strange feeling they don’t like me, but there again I get the strange feeling my mother never liked me. They don’t know me and even my mother didn’t know me that well. I have met his family a few times and they only know me through Emanuel. I get the feeling that he will be influenced to break up with me. I actually thought he might marry me. The family believe that I have caused a divide between them. I tried to tell them that it wasn’t my fault. How am I responsible, if someone doesn’t like me from what they hear? They don’t know me. I had a cigarette because I wanted one. My mind was numb and I didn’t know what to feel. Emanuel said he loved me. I don’t know what love is. I am not sure I feel it or understand it. Over time, I have come to believe that love doesn’t exist at all, that it is a human abstract which has been created by society. I didn’t love Emanuel but I found his company pleasing when things were good between us. Mother, yes my mother. She didn’t endear love. She lost her temper. I know when I told people that I never loved her, including my father, he said: “I don’t want to hear that, I think you really do!” He’s wrong, I don’t. I didn’t even care about her. Her viciousness and deep-seated need to be right caused contempt in me. I wished that I could love her, but you can’t just turn it on. You either do or you don’t. I don’t love so that is why I find it hard to believe that it exists. That’s right, society would kill you for not loving your mother if it could. We are supposed to love our parents and romantic interests. What if you don’t? It is not as if I don’t feel remorse because I do. It is just that my emotions are blunted. I can’t help the way I am so stop judging me. Emanuel doesn’t know about mother. Mother had cancer and had her leg chopped off. I don’t know what to feel about it. When I was in Brisbane

looking after her she was very needy. She’d lose her temper when things didn’t go her way. She needed me, I suppose. I wanted to fly back to Perth. Then I went back for the funeral. I really didn’t want to go. I still wish I hadn’t. I got the feeling that those around me were judging me for the way I acted. I was standoffish with mother in her dying days and I am not sure why I put myself through all that. A sense of family obligation, possibly. Emanuel rang me at the wrong time. I didn’t need that. Throughout the relationship, Emanuel was very dependent on me. He found it hard to make his own decisions. A human door mat. It is easy: you make a decision and you live with the consequences. Neediness irritates me. I want to be far away from it. Call me a sociopath, I don’t care. You don’t know anything about me. I rang Michel and said that I wanted to go out. Michel picked me up in his 1970s Gemini. We saw a dark macabre movie; it was my second sitting through it. At first I was a little unsettled because I’d seen it with Emanuel. The romance scene in the beginning was rather sensual. The lady was grasped and passionately kissed. I wanted Emanuel. Very poetic. He is an artist and I am a poet. The lady was then shot on screen and the murderer stated: “I’ll cash her cheque in the morning!” I wondered if my cheque would be cashed in the morning. The idea was fleeting and soon passed. Later wonderful morbid humour and beautiful sexy babes that were pleasing to the pansexual eye appeared. I went home and didn’t sleep too well. I woke up at eight o’clock after a four hour sleep. I spend most of the day smoking an endless chain of cigarettes alone in my flat. My flat mate Bethany was out for the day. I tried to study. I tried to write. The flashes kept coming, much to my irritation. I couldn’t help what I saw, it wasn’t my fault. I get the feeling that the family thinks I am dependent on him, and I am emotionally manipulative. I don’t like that. I thought about the word “hope” and realise that this was nothing more than a delusion. I used to be Baha’i. I never really believed in big daddy upstairs. I don’t need to be bossed around by my own father, let alone an imaginary one. I was in the faith because I believed the principles. Notably, that: “The Earth is but one country

and mankind its citizens.” That is a good saying because it doesn’t matter who you are you are welcome. However as time passed, I realised that the faith ridiculed queer identity. I couldn’t live with that. Now I can’t even get a driving lesson with someone of that faith because I am seen as a covenant breaker – an abomination. I’ve come to realise that there is no God and that the universe doesn’t give a fuck about what I do from day to day. The next morning I noticed cuts on my flatmate’s wrists. I asked her why she did that. She wouldn’t tell me. I was irritated. Feel sorry for her? I feel bad therefore I cut. How pathetic! She too can’t make decisions for herself. Boo hoo. I’m thinking of the world’s smallest violin. I am not Bethany’s mother but she seems to think that I am and relies on me to make decisions of her own not that much different to Emanuel. That irritates. Later that day I had to get away from the irritation so I went to University to write. I needed my space and have decided that I am moving away from her at the end of the year to live by myself. On the bus, I listened to “Thoughts of a dying Atheist” by Muse and sang the lyrics to myself quietly. “Look through a faithless eye, Are you afraid to die?” And I thought about it. Yes I am, but really we all die someday. One day we all meet oblivion. To think about it. Before I was born I never existed and was perfectly happy. And after I die, I’ll cease to exist and probably be perfectly happy if that means anything. I don’t think it does. Michel told me that his mother had spinal cancer and would soon be dead. I didn’t know what to say. I could see the tears welling in his eyes. The cold night and his tears made me feel uncomfortable. Emanuel called again at the wrong time and told me that his father had a heart attack and I didn’t know how to respond to that either. I told myself that it did not matter. I told him that it did not matter to me. He said: “He’s my Dad!” He didn’t understand, I said nothing else. I wanted to say that I did not mean to upset him. Too much death. It is not my fault that death happens and I am not going to lie and say sorry when I am not. A letter arrived in the mail telling me: “Crystal passed away. She had a troubled life and it came as a shock to us all that she took her own life.” She’s

dead from depression. Why did they not state that? I did not attend the funeral and for a brief moment I remembered how sullen mother’s had been. I don’t much like funerals. Crystal was a good friend yet it is a corpse that will be buried. It isn’t her. I can’t attend it anyway and others do not think well of me for it. Then for a split second my mind returned to the focus of Emanuel and in a very sideways manner I remembered the collection of those who dress in black, the ones who hate society. I stood in the town’s square watching their expressions with intent detail. Not one was smiling, they were resisting society yet all were a conformity of their own. I was staring at them when I noticed one of them yell out: “Hey Weirdo! You’re freaking us out. Bloody freak!” I gently smiled, continuing to watch their very dull eyes which were now bright with expectation. The shirts were sign posts for death and many possessed superficial scars on their wrists showcasing the longing for death yet denial of it. The cuts were shallow and were almost a fashion statement of cat scratches against a paisley sky. That was my first encounter with the gothic subculture. That was the place I met Emanuel two days before Valentine’s Day. I was attracted to him from the first day: I wanted him. I questioned whether I loved him but realised I didn’t. I still would have married him however as it is far better to marry someone you like who is good to you than ever feel that booming love in a destructive relationship. I told my mother this once and she said that was a sad way of looking at it. We were together for six months. Emanuel’s family are Catholics. They crucified me, for my difference to convention. If I had wanted to be crucified I would have become a catholic carving the wounds of Christ into my wrists like those in the gothic subculture. I don’t see the point of martyrdom. I have been betrayed by Judas Iscariot, I mean Emanuel. He didn’t defend me when his family crucified me. It is true. I don’t understand that, crucifixion. I don’t believe in blame, it serves no purpose and is devoid of meaning. I am not a martyr. I used to have some vision of being a great poet. I had ambition once. Now I just write because I do. Poetry and Prose drive me. I suppose, it is a big deal to be doing your doctorate although I don’t know what I will do with it

afterward, nor do I particularly care. It irritates me when people say: “I am so proud of you”. I just think: “So what? I do the work and that is it”. I have others that say: “You are a life-long student and can’t understand why you are doing yet another degree. What is the point?” The fact is, does there have to be a point? I am doing it because I can. That is a valid enough reason as any. I don’t see why I should have to prove myself to people. I have never understood “keeping up with the Jones’”. If life is truly a competition and you have extraordinary standards; you will be constantly disappointed when you don’t win or fail to meet those standards that you set upon yourself. I don’t see the point. I thought of mother. I thought how she must have been disappointed with her life. She was an artist and she didn’t pursue it; she gave it up to be a housewife in order to have children. I find this sad. I thought of writing a poem about mother today. I remember the day she died. The rain drops fell like cross hatches on the hospital windows. That might make a good line. I like that. Is there a greater purpose to it all? Are we defined by our achievements in this lifetime? I don’t know. Your own purpose and own meaning is the one you wish to create. There is no grand design, there is no life after death and no big daddy in the sky awaiting you. Are you scared? I am. To realise that this lifetime is rather hopeless and there is no real meaning frightens the hell out of me. Why do people believe in God? They are deluding themselves that they are special. We are not unique snowflakes as they say in Fight Club. You aren’t special. You just exist and die. That is the sum total of it all. So you think you know me. So you think I am a sociopath. I am not. You really don’t know me. You just think you do. I like things and I dislike things. I have never understood why Bethany, my flatmate, sees her Mum so much. She says: “How is my Mummy doing?” I mean: “Mummy”, isn’t that rather childish? I moved away from my parents when I was twenty-two, now I am thirty-eight. I don’t feel the need to constantly engage with my parents. I have my own life. My father has remarried. I don’t particularly understand my stepmother. Why do I have to understand her? She isn’t my mother and even if she was I still would not need to understand her motives. My Dad is happy. Who

he marries is really none of my business. I am nice to my step-mother when she is nice to me and if she gets angry I defend myself. That is it. I am not a very conventional person. I have been told that I lack social graces. That is just me. I have been told that I never shut up. I can tell any stranger my thoughts and they have said on occasion: “It feels like I have known you for years.” As Fight Club would say once again, they are single-serve friends. That is it, isn’t it? For that moment you are friends but you get off the bus or the aeroplane and never the twain shall meet. We all die alone. There is nothing awaiting you. Perhaps the Monty Python crew have it right, you should laugh in the face of death. Although it scares me I choose to laugh. I sit here singing: “Always, look on the bright side of death, when you take your last terminal breath.” Life of Brian had it right, just enjoy death. What else can you do? Whether you die on the cross or decide to commit suicide it doesn’t really matter, the eventuality is the same. I die. You die. We all die. I was just thinking of “A Most Peculiar Man” by Simon and Garfunkel, the lyric “All the people said, it is a shame that he’s dead, but wasn’t he a most peculiar man.” That is what I imagine they will say when I am dead. I am peculiar. I don’t care. Why should you care? It isn’t your business. As The Cure say in their song “Killing an Arab”: “What terror amounts, it amounts to the same, absolutely nothing” and it is in that “nothingness” that we all exist. ***

Tonight, I picked up a woman from the gay bar and had sex with her. I don’t see the point of mourning Emanuel anymore. I just need to get laid to get over him. I had some fine sex tonight, I had multiple orgasms. I suppose you feel uncomfortable. I don’t see why you should. Sex is natural and humans should not deny their animal nature. I am animal. You are animal. We are all animal. Animals die and so do we. Death is absolute truth and if you haven’t realised that yet, you are ignorant of reality. I choose to live in the real world. I am no longer deluded by the guise of religion.

I have a friend called James who thinks that he is “psychic”. He believes in the afterlife. Once he said that my dead mother was visiting him and I just agreed. He has a right to believe in this kooky stuff and why should I burst his bubble even though I know that you live, you die and that is it. We cease to exist and rot in the ground or become incinerated. I think that I might donate my body to science so that this meat suit can be of use to future generations. I’d like to think that any organs that are of any use will be donated to the appropriate parties. I am not going to have any use for this body anymore when I die. That is reality. My mother was incinerated. I feel that was a waste of the meat suit. Sometimes I wonder whether a group of cannibals will eat my flesh when I die. I know that the thought scares most people. But in reality at least the body is being used for some purpose. I could kill myself. I could live to fifty-nine and die of cancer like my mother or I might die of natural causes. Who knows? Does it really matter? People think that suicide is a sad thing but really if someone is in that much pain, who is the authority on someone else’s body? No one is. It is your body you do with it what you wish. I smoke and friends tell me to give it up because I will die of a smoking related illness. Truth is, I will die of something. Why must everyone tell you what you should do with your own body? No sex before marriage, don’t smoke, don’t drink and don’t take drugs. Sex is for the purpose of procreation some say, which in the natural world it is. However, humans would not enjoy sex and orgasm unless we weren’t meant to. So obviously sex is meant to be enjoyed. Now, I am thinking of Emanuel again. I want him inside of me. Bethany left after we had an argument. I wanted her gone. Her presence irritated me. I still don’t understand why she cut herself and I don’t forgive her actions. Bethany is staying with her sister now and I am glad for the peace, I just want some time away from her. Her need to cut did not raise sympathy in me, just irritation. I have come to realise that I like my own company. I have come to realise that living with Bethany these last few years that I have been walking on egg shells and not really being myself. I want freedom, not restriction. The freedom of choice to do what I want to do when I want to do it.

She is like a boa-constrictor. She reduces me to a broken skeleton. I don’t mind her company. She’s alright, but I am not a mother. If I had wanted to be a mother I wouldn’t have had my tubes tied. I could have had children by now, but I can’t be bothered. I don’t want to spend twenty-four hours a day giving up my freedom to a screaming brat. I don’t really have the finance to have a child anyway, and their life would be a struggle at best. I don’t have a secure relationship and if I had been pregnant to Emanuel I most certainly would have aborted because it is not like the child would have seen their father anyway. Children! I can’t be bothered. Too much hassle, but isn’t that every woman’s dream to be a mother? Not mine, that is for sure. I often see parents on the bus with four children that are in dirty second-hand clothes and it looks as though they can barely afford to eat. Don’t we have enough starving children in the world? To have even more in the first world? I just don’t have the finances and I never want to be a kept woman by a man. It doesn’t suit my lifestyle. It doesn’t suit my ideals. What my ideals are I really don’t know. However, children turn me off. I want to enjoy life. It is not my mission to be born, seek out a man who will father my children, bring them up and die a worn out old woman. If I met a woman who suited me, I could happily be with her and that doesn’t endorse the ideal of a nuclear family now does it? I still don’t have a boyfriend or girlfriend. I walked past The Court which is a gay bar. I thought for a minute about how I could pick up a woman and thought about how promiscuous the gay scene was. I thought that wasn’t for me. I mean how could someone just pick someone up from a bar and have sex with them. I thought about how I’d rather be single than do that. Sex without meaning. I don’t know if I can bring myself to that? Then I thought of the Baha’i religion where sex was about procreation. I am not sure I can do that either. The reason I left the Baha’i religion was because the idea of having sex was for the purpose of pro-creation. Each to their own. I don’t understand that. The Baha’i faith doesn’t have a problem with contraception like the Catholic faith but, the idea of abortion or wanting to have your tubes tied is a big ‘no-no’ in the religion. Surely preventing a pregnancy by having your tubes tied is better than an abortion? Not that I have a problem with abortion because it is

not like an embryo is any more than a collection of cells. It doesn’t think. It doesn’t feel or reason. Children do not start to reason at least until they are three years old or something like that. Abortion isn’t murder. People lose these collections of cells all the time. It is called a miscarriage. It is natural not to bring every pregnancy to term. I don’t really understand why women get so weepy over losing a baby in a miscarriage. Really, stop weeping and try again. If you can’t have children then adopt or something. I really don’t understand this whole ‘child debate’. I don’t need to reproduce. Plenty of people around me are doing it all for me. I don’t particularly find babies attractive. They remind me of Winston Churchill – stick a cigar in their mouths and you’d never know the difference. They restrict you, like Bethany does. I was at the pizza shop the other day, and I met a woman through her cat. I like cats. Not that that means anything. We were talking while my pizza was cooking and she asked me how old I was. I told her that I was nearly forty and she proceeded to tell me that she was the same age. She had three teenage children. I didn’t take much notice. I mean so what? It wasn’t until she asked me what I was doing with myself that the conversation got interesting. I told that I was doing my PhD. She asked what that was. I told her that it was too complicated to explain to the layman. She seemed to accept that. Then she asked: “How many children do you have?” I told her that I had none and she seemed shocked by that. I don’t know why. It is not a woman’s mission to have children. Then her eyes grew into slits as if there was something wrong with me. She said: “I’ve never met a woman without children before.” I knew she was judging me and then she began to ask why. I simply stated: “I don’t want any”. She could not seem to comprehend that a woman might not want children. It is a foreign idea or is it? Bethany got indignant when I suggested that it might be a good idea that she never had children. Bethany asked why I thought this and I said: “You can’t even look after yourself, let alone a child. Do you think it is a good idea? Really?” It seems inherent in our society to be good little breeders. Where on earth does that come from? And if you have children, you are thinking one of two things: “I wish I hadn’t” or “you are weird”.

I rang James because I thought I had a message from him on my answering machine. He was rude to me. I said: “So it wasn’t you. Alright. No worries. See you later then.” Then he rang me back and started giving me a lecture that I always ring him and he never rings me, which is utter crap, because he rang me back to explain. I was sick of the lecture so I hung up on him. He rang back and left another message on my answering machine asking me to pick up. I didn’t want to talk to him. Am I really that obligated to do so? He seems to think so. In the meantime I found out that call was from another friend and had arranged for him to ring me back. The phone rang. James again. I thought: “Will this guy ever cease?” I said you are not who I was expecting and hung up yet again on him. Then as my other friend was proceeding to ring me, James was ringing again leaving another message on my answering machine pleading for me to pick up. I did and hung the phone back up so that I didn’t have to hear the rest of the message. Apparently James had been to a funeral that day, but I don’t have to tolerate bad behaviour. I made him a handmade sympathy card and enclosed a piece of paper with a one-line statement: “No matter how bad things are, there is no excuse for rudeness and bad behaviour.” The note and card will not get to him for another day yet. Simply because I would not answer the phone he said on the answering machine: “I thought you were supposed to be a friend.” Being a friend does not mean that you have to tolerate bullshit from someone. Just like Bethany and my mother. There is no excuse for bad behaviour. Now I would not be surprised if you thought I was devoid of feeling and unsympathetic. Think what you like. I care to have conversations in the realms of the rational. I have no time for irrational, drama queen behaviour. I think I have a right to my opinion, after all you have a right to yours. Emanuel hasn’t called in two weeks. Perhaps it is time I started looking for a new partner. I like the company. Just not all the time. It would be nice to have someone to go to theatre with and someone to share my bedroom with occasionally. I am lonely and horny. Getting back with Emanuel is obviously not going to happen. How do people get a partner these days? A friend suggested an internet dating site. Perhaps; I’ll try that. I will contact people and

ask if they want to go somewhere. I am not much for internet chat. Virtual friends are a waste of time. I prefer to meet people in person. I want a lover. I want a drinking buddy. I want more than a single serve friend. Single serve friends are ok for the aeroplane trip home but sometimes you want a repeat offender that you see time and time again. However, I am hoping through this dating site I might meet people with less complications than Bethany and James. I have no time for cutters and drama queens. My life is too valuable to be consumed with that sort of thing. I miss Emanuel I suppose, or maybe I miss the sex, I can’t be sure. I went on a trip to Margaret River recently. It rained. I was only five minutes away from the beach. The rain was too heavy to go out in. I would have got drenched and where is the fun in that? I stepped outside the 1960s fisherman’s cabin I was staying in and the rain came from every which direction. I was with a man I had met on a dating site. He is tall with a big frame. He has a very expressive face and is four years my senior. He doesn’t want children and that is a first. I don’t know if he’ll be my boyfriend or whether we are just fuck buddies. Only time will tell. I know that he doesn’t want to get married. Marriage isn’t important, even though I thought that I may marry Emanuel. Emanuel called me “the one” to his mother in the first two months of dating and that sort of euphemism generally means lifelong partner or “soul mate” or some stupid shit like that. The man I am having a dirty weekend with is named Mike. He’s got an insulting sense of humour but that really doesn’t bother me as I can honestly say everyone is different. He isn’t racist or anything. Just a typical Aussie larrikin especially when he has a few under his belt. We fucked like rabbits and it helped me forget about the betrayal of Emanuel for a while. I missed that sensation and the touch of another human being on the skin. Mike and I shared a bottle of his moonshine that he’d especially made up for the weekend. It went down nicely. It is smoother than commercial liquor and gives you an effect similar to being stoned. We mellowed. Mike doesn’t understand marriage. He doesn’t see why you should ask the government’s permission to be with someone. I said I didn’t agree with de facto laws as I had been stung with that before with an ex, this ex isn’t

Emanuel. I had a de facto once. We were living together for about two years. I had a breakdown and went to hospital. He and his family came into our flat and took all my furniture and possessions. I couldn’t do a thing. I was in hospital. When I came out and was aware of what happened I tried to contact the authorities but nothing could be done as he was my de facto and it was not counted as theft. I sent that partner a text message saying: “You are a liar, a thief and a coward”. I never heard from him again. He even treated James with disdain. James was trying to help me out in the height of my breakdown which is the only reason I suppose I still talk to him. James had to attend the interment of his grandfather’s ashes, yet my partner at the time demanded he buy breakfast apparently. All this was said when I was asleep, but how am I supposed to know? James has a habit of exaggerating the truth at times. He’s not an outright liar but has his perception of the truth and anyone who dares to challenge that gets a serve. Myself included. James can be a idiot at best. Sometimes I don’t even know why I am talking to him. Probably out of some sense of misguided loyalty or something. Even Mike thinks that James is a fuckwit as he has heard him whining into the answering machine often enough. Mike started looking at me with lustful eyes on the veranda. I know he wanted me again. I wasn’t particularly horny, but I thought why not? He caressed my nipples under my shirt and said: “Shall we go to the bedroom?” I nodded. There was nothing else to do as I couldn’t exactly go down to the beach in the pouring rain. The weather was foreboding and having a cigarette on the veranda was difficult enough. He played with me and I hopped on top of him to formulate my own rhythm. When he climaxed, I dismounted the wild stallion and he kept looking at me with this gaze. I said: “I hope you are not in love”. He said he wasn’t. He said that I was no fashion model but that I was really pretty. It is true. I’m average at best. You are born with the collection of features you are born with and short of plastic surgery (which I don’t see the point in) you can do nothing about it. So why worry plastering on half a ton of make up to look worse than a drag queen? Then he said: “I’ve got the perfect song for you.” Then he started singing Crowded House’s “Into Temptation”. The words “Into temptation, knowing full well, the Earth will rebel. Into

temptation, safe in the wide open arms of hell.” Perhaps I’m his hell on earth and if that is the case, I couldn’t think of a better hell. I asked him where this was going. He said he didn’t know. I asked him if I satisfied him and admitted that I did. Perhaps I am looking for the catch. When it will all turn to shit again? I asked him if he believed in God. He said he was an atheist and I asked him if death scared him and he admitted that it did. He asked about my preoccupation with death. I said that I knew it was inevitable as everything dies. And I explained that I used to be into everything Goth and he said he now understood why a hippy was wearing Dr Martins, remnants of a leftover subculture. It has been 15 months since Mike and I started dating now. He called me his girlfriend. He doesn’t like the term partner. He says you have partners in business nothing else. I find the expression girlfriend juvenile. He isn’t a fuck buddy, that is now clear, but girlfriend? Really? I hate the term lover as that implies that you are in love. I suppose partner is what I would have chosen as it is sexless and suggests a certain degree of shared interest. Ok, partner, girlfriend, does it matter. We are together. This relationship is far from conventional. I am not sure that he ever wants to live with me, and that is ok. What will be will be. I am not bothered. I have his companionship. I told him that if I ever did move in that I want my own room and want to pay rent. Something about me feels that it is right to pay your own way. Where do women get off living with their significant other and not paying something and where does that bullshit come from that women should stay at home raising children? Like that is our only purpose in life. I don’t want to be a mother. I don’t want to be a mother who fucks up my children and have a lifetime of regret. I don’t really want the responsibility. Children are alright, but I couldn’t eat a whole one. People often see children as an extension of themselves and if they are not religious, the key to their immortality and their names sake. I mean really who cares if the name dies out? It is only a name. If I ever feel the need to be clucky, I’ll adopt a child. It doesn’t have to be my flesh and blood. Blood is bullshit. Just look at my mother and father.

When I went to Brisbane to visit my father for his birthday, I felt hormonal on the day so cancelled. I didn’t know that was the problem of course. I just kept crying. I hate crying. It makes no sense at all and just irritates. Then the menstruation came. Hormonal alright! I tried to arrange another time to see him. He said he was busy. I wasted my time travelling from Perth to Brisbane to see him. I don’t know why I bothered. Perhaps some sense of misguided obligation. I don’t know. I know that I wanted to see him without my step mother. That was going to be arranged. When trying to make alternative arrangements, he started giving me a thirty eight year old child a lecture. I am not a child. Yet somehow in my father’s mind I’ve never grown up. It was about my Aunt. She’s a bitch. She was nasty to me. I said that she was aggressive and she took offense. She told me not to contact her again. No skin off my nose and I told her to grow up. She told me to get a real job and learn how to get on with people. My father says I can’t get on with people. It’s true sometimes I can’t be bothered. Other times you rue the day you cross me. My Aunt crossed me. She’s a university educated idiot and yes that does sound like a tautology. Education should expand the mind, not close it. But there again my Aunt has always been closed off to me. That night I felt terrible. I wanted to die. I sent messages to my friends asking to give me some hope in life. They said things like: “You are an awesome person” and “a good friend” but Mike said: “You’ll be ok.” What Mike said meant the most. It is true. I would be alright. I would live to see another day. It is all subjective and transitionary. The next message he sent was: “I’ll make you a homemade pizza when you get home.” I don’t know why but that meant more than being “an awesome friend”. I know they meant well. Instead of praise Mike just brought me back to the reality that everything would be alright no matter how shit I felt at the time. I came home to Perth and two days later I saw Mike. He made me that homemade pizza and brought around some moonshine. I got pissed because I wanted to. He said that he’d missed me and had looked forward to seeing me for days. I suppose that was nice and it did feel good on some level. I enjoy his conversations. I enjoy his company. It isn’t all about fucking although I don’t deny that that is nice. I think I like him. He said that he liked me, which is

pleasing to know. In some ways, even though he doesn’t love me, Mike shows me more love than my father. Strange. My father told someone that he loves me dearly. I mean: What the fuck? Really? Then show it. This is why I don’t believe in love. Love is a human made construct. My father has never said that he loves me. I don’t think he does and I don’t particularly care but I wish that he would acknowledge me and my efforts. He doesn’t. That is the card that I am dealt with. C’est la vie! I can’t change it. It is not worth wishing for something better. My Aunt said she was proud of me at my mother’s funeral. I told her that I’d remember that as I don’t hear any encouraging words from her very often and I told her that she was lying. That didn’t go down very well. The fact is I don’t believe my Aunt. “Go out and get a real job”, but it was ok for her daughter to be doing her PhD and not working until she was in her early thirties. So I went to university later. I mean get over it. I don’t have much ambition. You think I do because I am studying a PhD. I just want to write and publish. I’ll just do some menial job on the side that will bring in enough money to buy myself a modest one bedroom flat. People say to me: “Buy a two bedroom flat”. It is more expensive. I don’t see the point. I just want a home. I hate paying rent and most of all I hate rent inspections and having to move because the owner is selling the place beneath my feet yet again for a profit. I’ll get something cheap. I don’t understand why people live beyond their means. Why do people want the extravagant? My $2000 car recently died and I am going to replace it with another working shit bomb that will get me from A to B. I don’t need anything fancy. Fuck getting finance on a car. My boyfriend drives some 1980s shit bomb and a guy he was employing said: “Have you ever been successful? Is that car really yours?” He told them that it was. They scoffed him. But the fact is he doesn’t need a BMW like my cousin drives. He said to his employee: “You know my house?” and the employee said: “Yeah!”. Mike said: “I bought that outright with cash! I have no home loan, I am not a slave to the banks!” He has a point. Although I will probably get a home loan for a cheap property when I get a job, I’ll pay it off as soon as possible. I plan on paying it off in 8 years. I don’t want the banks hassling me either. I want freedom. That is how Mike

views money. Freedom. A cheap flat in a reasonable suburb with a cheap car is all that I need. I suppose this is why Mike calls me a hippy. Money is a means to an end for me. Money is freedom for him. Funnily enough I have never been a hippy. However my boyfriend views me as one, because my viewpoints are more liberal than his, I suppose. I don’t like labels, even though I identified with the Gothic subculture at one point. At one point my identity was wrapped up in a religion with notions of big daddy upstairs. I woke up one morning and realised that the greater populace of the world speaks to an invisible God. God is dead. Or at least wouldn’t give a crap about us. If God did then there would be no murder, sickness or starvation. Nature is indiscriminate. Nature doesn’t give a fuck. Nature just is. Just as you are. Just as we all are. Nature is indifferent. Why does everything have to be so human centric? I mean seriously. This world we call Earth lives and will eventually be swallowed by the sun. I’ve heard people argue with my lover on the point. Yes I suppose I might use the word lover. What is this? The flat Earth society? An idea that the Earth will always continue to endure. Just like you will become null and void, so will the Earth. It is inevitable. That’s the way things are. Better to accept the truth than live in delusion. You are going to die. The world is going to die. I used to hope that there was a God although I saw no evidence for it. Hope. Yes, hope. People live for hope. They think that death is just the beginning but I know it is the end. Every good story has a beginning, middle and end and so too does a life. Sometimes I feel like a disjointed puppet living out someone else’s story. I am often disconnected. I accept that this is the case. I can’t do anything about it so why even bother trying? I was talking to someone once. She said you talk about emotions as if they are inventions. Well, they are. Emotions are a bunch of chemical reactions that cause us to feel something. They aren’t special. People act like “love” is the meaning of life, but truth be told I have found no meaning. The Baha’is believed that we humans were made for some greater purpose but the reason for this remains obscure. Baha’is attest to equality of the sexes and races. I actually agree with this. However in the top end of the religion there is a contradiction. They don’t

allow women to join The Universal House of Justice which is the supreme governing body of the Baha’i faith. They are hypocrites. I can’t support a religion that espouses equality but denies women the right to be members of the top governing body. Even the world’s youngest religion has not lost the oppression of patriarchy. I suppose I was more content when I was living with the God delusion. At least there was hope. I didn’t fully believe. I had my doubts. My doubts increased the more people showed hatred toward each other. This group oppresses that group, with the idea that they are on the right path. Especially in religion. The truth is that you are trapped since the moment of ovulation. You are prisoner to genes and circumstance. We are all dying. As a character from Fight Club says: “In the Tibetan philosophy, Sylvia Path sense of the word. We’re all dying.” The Buddhist view on death is that we are all dying from the moment of birth and I see this as a true summary, even though I am not a follower of that religion. I agree with the Buddhists that there is no soul in human kind, as the big daddy religions espouse. Think about it, I am not the same person I was when I was three, and I am not the same person as I was even ten years ago. Now, I can understand why Sylvia Path stuck her head in an oven. Children weren’t enough to keep living. She had no purpose. She had no partner. The only purpose I have is my own self-created one. Is it merely enough to exist if others want you too? Seriously, who has the right to tell you that you should exist for them? Your partner, friends or family? I have talked about suicide with friends before and they have said: “Suicide is selfish. It will destroy those around you.” Really isn’t it selfish for those around you to want you to keep existing for them? They are the selfish ones. Ok, crucify me for saying that. Yet you say you don’t want me dead, yet you want to ostracise me. How can you live with your double standards?

***

I was talking to Bethany last night and honestly told her why I was leaving. I said that I liked her, but she was a doormat and that doormat’s allow

fuckwits to wipe their feet on them. I don’t want to put up with the fuckwit factor any more. It is her choice to have fuckwit friends but I don’t want it impeding on me. I don’t want to put up crazies and emotionally manipulative people. I have finally made the decision to get rid of James the drama queen when I move. I will not provide him my address or new telephone number. I will simply ‘forget’ on purpose. To borrow a phrase from Fight Club, “I am Casey’s enraged bile duct”. I had a friend that recently said that I was dry, technical and academic-like. I thought: “You are unintelligent and I have never held that against you. I made allowances.” I kicked him off my facebook and deleted his mobile number. I sent a message telling him what I had done and that I deserve respect. I know enough about life that people deserve to be respected for who they are. If you don’t like me for who I am, I can’t make you. It isn’t my business, but don’t waste my time pretending. Just fuck off and leave me be. I don’t have to be liked and not everyone is going to like me. Why should I take it personally? I don’t like Bethany’s fuckwit friends and I am not obliged to. Why should I? I mean I have no time for trouble makers. I have long forgotten about Emanuel. The betrayal is a distant memory. Now I am concentrating on Mike. Mike is an atheist. He doesn’t get hung up on religion. I like that. We have decided that we are not going to meet each other’s parents. We don’t see the point. The relationship between the two of us is our business. I asked Mike if I could move in with him and he said not really. I didn’t take offence. It is his choice. Some of my friends do not understand why we are not living together. It isn’t their business. I don’t want to be de facto and he doesn’t want a wife. We have our reasons. Just yesterday, Bethany said: “It is a pity that you can’t move in with Mike.” I said: “Not really”. She didn’t comprehend that answer and began to give me the third degree on the matter. I said that perhaps I am not ready to live with him or perhaps I am not sure that I ever want to. That did not go down well at all. She couldn’t comprehend not “living with the boyfriend”. Yes, Mike I suppose has developed into a boyfriend. I like his company. The thing is I don’t need to live with him. He expressed the reason for not introducing me to his parents. I accepted that. He said that his mother is aching for grandchildren and me

being barren would not go down very well, even though he is pleased about it. Neither of us want children. I don’t know if my Dad would approve and I don’t really care. Cest La Vie! And it is my life! I expressed an interest in him talking to my father on the phone and he stated that he didn’t want to. I also accepted that. Parents and lovers shall never meet. Who cares, right? I like Mike and that is all that matters. I am not constrained to society’s obligations. I think that perhaps it is better that we don’t meet each other’s parents. At least it will take the pressure off the relationship. I’ve stopped talking to Michel. We met when I was doing night school when I was trying to do my high school certificate as a mature age student. Michel wanted to go to university and wasn’t endowed with much intelligence and was slightly autistic but I didn’t hold that against him. He had a kind heart and was most certainly simplistic. We used to play cards together and then we moved in as flat mates with Bethany. Michel thought that I was not treating him with equality. It was a bit hard to talk about intellectual pursuits with a slightly autistic fellow. That’s ok. That is the way life is. I often would explain things to him because he’d get lost in conversation. Michel finally decided that he couldn’t live with Bethany and myself. I accepted that and he moved out. We haven’t spoken since. It is not that I have ill will toward him it is just that we are worlds apart and have little in common. Bethany and I have seen him a few times since we’ve moved but he has no nastiness towards us; that comes with his child-like acceptance. Bethany on the other hand is like a spoilt teenager and loses her temper when she is not given enough guidance which is a lot more irritating than a six year old child’s temper tantrum. I have lived with a couple of children. I don’t like it. I don’t want to be a mother for a reason. Bethany was talking about the indifference she had toward the world. How she was apathetic. I said, I get like that. She didn’t believe me. She doesn’t know me as well as she thinks she does and doesn’t see inside my head. These are my thoughts. I own them. I am entitled to think whatever I like, though society would cast me to the outskirts for such thoughts. Why should I conform? That is the difference between Bethany and I. She is afraid to say anything that may offend, and wants to conform. By my very nature I disdain

all constraints put upon me. I go swimming naked in the ocean at night. Not because I care about what people think of my naked body but because I don’t like sunburn. I’m blonde. I’m fair skinned. I burn. I hate the sun bearing down at me in the middle of summer and the heat bashing my eyes from being reflected off the concrete I walk on. I am a creature of the night. I am darkness. I am an abyss. I like the idea of moonbathing rather sunbathing. This is what attracted me to the Gothic culture. I had read Dracula and Frankenstein. I was a monster. I am a monster. I thought about count Dracula, I long for immorality and if the price is bloodlust then so be it. But Dracula longed for his love in the midst of three wives. Frankenstein’s monster loved even though he was clearly an outcast. I long for this love. These classics inspired the Gothic romanticism of the nineteenth century and the steam punk generation. Where Victorian dress became fashionable in a sense. I grew up in the 1980s which inspired the now modern Goth subculture. Bands such as Adam and the Ants and The Cure were the roots of this culture. Such imagery from Dracula and other vampiric novels influenced the culture’s look and way of dressing. Black, purple and crimson red were the fashionable colours. White faces and Egyptian style eye-liner were the hallmarks of their make-up. As someone who has an appreciation for theatrics I found this culture attractive. However, the culture was full of a bunch of people that like to play “let’s pretend” which I did pretty well in my porcelain- doll mask. I hate make-up. It was not that I didn’t appreciate the fine works of art that were so many of their faces. It is just that I hate oil and powder on my skin. I hate to have to reapply this. This is why I employed masks. This is where Emanuel and I met. Funnily enough, these people were just conventional people who liked black and took too many drugs. I still adore the way of dress. I find it somehow otherworldly and alluring. I still had to wear the mask behind the mask. The masks that people have to wear in this society. Whilst I am good at acting, I am not good in a social situation not being myself. I long to just be in touch with myself, nature and others. However I doubt this yearning will ever be fulfilled. I am different. I am the outcast among outcasts. As Simon and

Garfunkel once sang, “I am a rock. I am an Island. And a rock feels no pain and an Island never cries” and “ I have my books and my poetry to protect me. I am shielded in my armour. Hiding in my room, safe within my womb. I touch no one and no one touches me.” The original Goths that started the movement like Robert Smith from The Cure were more like me. He sung “Killing an Arab” which is bound to be misinterpreted these days by those who dislike Muslims. The song “Killing an Arab” was inspired by Albert Camus’ L’Etranger (The Stranger). I can’t help but think that Robert Smith in his own right may have been an existentialist. I am sure he was. I am an outsider, a stranger among strangers. I relate. Bethany knows this paedophile and I have had a number of conversations with him. He doesn’t seem that bad. Perhaps paedophilia is an illness or even a type of sexuality. I don’t know. I can imagine how much this paedophile would feel like an outsider. He is far from the first paedophile I have encountered. One was a friend of Emanuel’s. He said that he never wanted to hurt children but wanted the feeling of being loved by those children and to have an intimate physical bond. That yearning doesn’t sound that sick, although it would be appropriate with an adult rather than a child. Perhaps these paedophiles can’t help it. I know I can’t help who I am but I never do anything to hurt another. It makes you wonder what the drive is to do this. I wish I knew. If this were ancient Rome this wouldn’t be seen as sick. It would just be seen as a normal part of society. I wonder were those children scared by the experiences in ancient Rome or perhaps they just saw it as everyday life. We live in a paedophile paranoid society. It is all hush, hush. Perhaps if people talked about it and got rid of the damning attitudes then, something could be done to solve the problem. Like that paedophile said: he yearned to have an intimate psychical bond, I longed for this also with Emanuel but didn’t get it. Sometimes, I feel there is no clear cut “right” and “wrong” or “good” and “evil”. It is clear that paedophiles need a way out, some way of communicating instead of being society’s perceived “predators”. Not enough is understood on the topic and fear breeds contempt. This contempt in turn breeds paranoia. Though I don’t particularly want to be friends with either of the paedophiles

they both seemed nice enough to me and did me no wrong so why should I judge them? One of the poor men said: “I am at the bottom of society’s pecking order. I should be annihilated.” If he chooses to kill himself that is his own business but who else has the right to say what is done with his life? It is not mine. It is not yours. So mind your own business. You hear people gossiping about the strange man down the street. If he is absent of a lover and lives alone he is somehow something strange – perhaps a paedophile. I don’t agree with society’s labelling or the need for gossip. I had people gossip about me. I knew it was happening. I was spending Christmas with Emanuel’s family. They proceeded to comment that I had a young spirit and that I was wearing no bra. So what if I was wearing no bra. You shouldn’t be looking at my tits unless I give you permission to do so. I preferred to socialise with the children even though I was an adult. I had fun. There was an absence of judgement. I went around squirting ten year olds with water pistols in the hot summer sun. This is why I got judged for being socially inept, simply because I did not want to fit in with the bitching-and-barbeque session of the adults. I am too honest for that. I don’t need that. I was miserable. I hate Christmas and everything that it represents. I used to like Christmas as a child but now I am disillusioned by the family get togethers. I grew up being compared to my cousin about how unsuccessful I was. Now I am studying a PhD it is still not enough for my Aunt as I should be out in the workforce collecting material possessions. I am not very materialistic. I don’t have a smart phone. I don’t need one. One day I will update when I have to but I don’t need to. I don’t understand gossip. I don’t like it. My Aunt probably gossips about me all the time, seeing as I am a major disappointment to the family. A black sheep. Well, fuck you. I don’t need your acceptance. You think I do but I don’t. Not everyone is going to like me. Mike is successful at what he does. He runs his own business and loves making money. He owns his own house. I wouldn’t say that he is particularly materialistic. His house is a 1970s home, one that he grew up in. Its curtains are tattered. He has no floor covering – only cement. But he says: “I own it”. He talks about wanting to renovate it, but in the year I have known him nothing

has happened. It is in desperate need of a plumber. The sinks are clogged. It is a real bachelor pad. That’s ok. I don’t live there and I don’t ever need to live there. He is messy. He is lazy. There again I am lazy in a different way. I am content working a 9-5 job when I come out of my study. Mike doesn’t understand that. He doesn’t like government workers. I don’t care. If I end up working for the government, I’ll buy myself a one bedroom flat. I don’t need to have anything more. I don’t need a house. I am never going to have children. And the smaller it is, the easier it will be to keep it. I don’t have much of a dream. All I know is when I own this flat, I’ll have a mortgage and will plan to pay it off as soon as possible. I don’t particularly care what it looks like, but having my own flat would be nice so that I can avoid rent inspections and being kicked out every time they want to sell the property. Someone said to me: “You want an apartment in South Perth overlooking the Swan River.” I thought that is what you want and I stated: not really. I want something cheap that is not going to take the rest of my life to pay off. I want a flat. Screw the views. I don’t care. I want a place to call home. I don’t have any big aspirations. As far as cars are concerned the two thousand dollar shit bomb will get me from A to B so why do I need something fancy on finance. I don’t. Second hand furniture, in a second hand flat with a second hand car is all I want. Everybody wants me to aspire to something more. I am content with basics. I have spent years of my life without a car and now I have one as I bought it off a friend cheap. I’m fine with that. I don’t need anything more. I don’t have my license yet but I am working on it. I have never needed it till now, so I didn’t see the point in having it. Now I have a car. I have a reason. I don’t have many desires. Sure I want to go on holiday. I don’t need to stay in a five star hotel. The basic backpacker’s will do me. Or some cheap hotel. I don’t have high standards. I am happy with simplicity. Many don’t understand that. I don’t think that Mike completely gets this wavelength, although I said once: “I suppose you judge me because I am a cheap skate.” He responded with a simple, “No”. He thought it terrific that I was frugal with money. I don’t know why. I’d rather budget and have a simple life than blow my life out with debt doing things that I can’t really afford. I live within my means. Bethany doesn’t. She wants a part

time job that pays very well, where she can own a flash house and have all the latest gadgets. That doesn’t appeal to me. I don’t know why. It doesn’t. Bethany and Mike are pushing me to get a smart phone. I still haven’t given up my old dinosaur of a thing yet. It works. They even found me a second hand smart phone which remains on my shelf. Really, I don’t care. I’ll use it when this phone stops working. I don’t need it. I really can’t be bothered learning the touch screen technology. People think you need what they think you need. I don’t need the internet everywhere I go, like so many others do. Mike and I are going away on holiday and he asked if the hotel we are staying in had wi-fi. I said that I didn’t know. I wasn’t thinking about an internet connection while going on holiday. It really isn’t that important to me. I suppose I don’t need to be linked into the world 24/7 like others do. I’d like to post on facebook my anti- status. What am I not doing? Where am I not going? And who am I not with? I do have facebook. To keep in touch with friends and family across the world. I post a status. It is often mundane, but I don’t care. I don’t need the need for a myriad of selfies and foodies like my friend Bethany. I get on there make a comment and am on for fifteen mins at best. Bethany and her friends spend hours scrolling it. Perhaps she is having more of virtual life in the absence of a real life and she is most certainly not coping with the real world or she wouldn’t have slashed her wrists. I don’t understand taking a picture of what you are eating or drinking but so many do it. I also don’t understand why people find it necessary to put up so many photos of themselves. Is this a wish to be famous? I think so. Facebook is laziness for me. I can tell all my “friends” what I have been up to and what I am doing. I don’t need to write letters or send a single sms. I understand that people that are interested in you want to know what you are doing. That is fair enough. I post the anti-status because I am the anti-hero. I am everything society hates. I am not a superhero. I can’t be bothered posting on facebook what you want me to post. Funnily enough, I noticed that more people “liked” a post about me mowing the garden than my efforts toward my PhD. I would have thought that the PhD was more interesting. When I first applied for my PhD and put it on my facebook, somebody commented: “Do you really need another degree?” and I thought

“Do you really need to make a comment?” So I am doing my PhD. So what? I’m just letting you know what I am doing. *Feeling despondent*, to pinch a facebook phrase. I went to see a play called Status Room, it was all about facebook and how people will tell “all” on this social media. I’m not afraid to tell people what I think and feel. Not that I feel too often. I do get moments of contentment, but also I feel unhappy at times. I’m not depressed. I am not worried. I just am. I accept that you can’t be happy all the time. I accept feelings are transitionary. Everything is transitionary. Nothing stays the same. It is the way things are. The search for fame and the material seems to be the drive in our society. A bunch of twelve year old children in this modern society were asked what they aspired to do when they grew up. I heard the idea of being “famous” being bandied around. There were no upcoming doctors, firemen or nurses. They all just want to be famous. When will I be famous? I don’t want to be. I stay out of limelight. Bethany recently started a job as a salesperson. I asked her whether she liked it. She said that she didn’t. She too wants to stay out of the limelight. I understand that. What I don’t understand is why Bethany is working a job where she is and needs to be a stage performer when she clearly is not one. Sales people are performers, actors. I don’t think they really believe in the product that they are selling. They are just interested in the money. I said that I thought that Bethany’s job was good for her self-assertion and people skills. She is working 6 days a week for commission. Screw that for a lark. She is being used. She is allowing this. I can’t stop it. Only she is control of her own destiny. That is if “destiny” exists. Yeah, it is a figure of speech. If she is going to work for free she may as well enjoy what she is doing. I suggested she do some volunteer work doing something that she would get some pleasure out of but she didn’t listen. She doesn’t have to listen. It is only a suggestion which is unimportant in the scheme of things. You have to love that protestant work ethic. You are your work. Work equals self-worth. Screw that. When you can divorce yourself from your job and just realise that it is a way of making money, only then do you find true

contentment. My Aunt seems to think what I am doing is somehow less valuable to the world than what her daughter is doing. I have no time for comparisons. I spent my early years not having any real value in the world because my Aunt said that I was unsuccessful. Even when I start to fulfil the shoes of what is considered to be “successful”, it is still not good enough. I am not good enough in her eyes. I don’t care. Self worth doesn’t exist anyway. It is also a human made concept like that of “love”. You are born. You die. Your self-worth doesn’t go up or down with what you do in this life. It doesn’t exist. So I chose not to worry too much about it. The concept of “self-worth” comes from that of the soul. Every little human being on this planet is worth something. It isn’t true. You are worth nothing. It doesn’t mean that you don’t make a value contribution because we all do. But you just simply exist. Self-worth is bullshit. The sooner the world realises that humans aren’t God’s special little creatures with mythological souls, the sooner we can get on with living, instead of childish notions of “being unique snowflakes” like Fight Club condemns. For too long I struggled for my Father’s approval. My Aunt’s approval. But approval is an addiction you either choose or not choose to inject into your veins. If someone approves of me, I am worth something. This is absolute balderdash, codswallop or bullshit. As I said before self-worth doesn’t exist. Does that mean that I am unhappy? No. I just am. To be devoid of emotional response is true freedom. In Gary Cox’s The Existentialist’s Guide to Death, the Universe and Nothingness it is said: “Joy, no less than sadness, anger, fear or any other emotion, is a magical behaviour that functions to miraculously transform a situation when that situation becomes too difficult for a person to deal with in a practical, unemotional way.” Cox also states: “Sartre also considers a man who dances with joy because a woman has said she loves him. In dancing, the man turns his mind away from the woman herself and from the difficulties of actually possessing and sustaining her love.” To be worth something because your father approves of you, is in actuality a “magical behaviour” that Cox suggests. Magic doesn’t exist. So why then does approval? The same can be said for so many other human abstracts.

This is where semiotics comes into the meaning of life. Semiotics for the layman is that it can be applied to anything meaning something within a certain culture. But what if you can create your own meaning? You can. No one can tell you how to think, although many will try to. What is the difference between polite speech and vulgar speech? It all means the same thing. What I mean is I often enjoy fucking my boyfriend Mike, although that could be said as I enjoy making love to my boyfriend Mike. The meaning is the same. As an animal I am taking part in certain mating capacities for procreation of the human species, even though I personally am not. Mating is natural. My boyfriend laughs when I say I enjoy mating. But what is funny about it? Really, mating, fucking, or making love amount to the same thing. Just that some are considered more clinical, vulgar or polite. It all amounts to the same, absolutely nothing. I mate so therefore I am animal. I question so therefore I am human. I mean really does that make me human? Some people stick by the religion without asking a single question in their lives. Questioning my life has enriched it. Given it, its own meaning. I don’t understand the Muslims particularly. Nor do I care too. I am not ignorant of their religion. I read their holy book. What I don’t understand is how someone can be that indoctrinated by a religion that they would suicide bomb. I mean seriously the crusades are happening all over again except this time the Muslims are fighting back. All this violence is senseless. But if I killed an Arab in today’s society, a lot would applaud me and others wouldn’t. One extreme action does not justify another extreme action. That is the same with Meursault. He killed an Arab in a time when most would not have been condemned for it. Yet somehow for such an action Meursault was on trial and no doubt the same thing would happen to me if I decided to bomb a Muslim school. I have no reason to hurt others so I wouldn’t do what Meursault did. I wonder sometimes when it will all end? You killed my family, so I want revenge and I kill your family. I suppose what this planet needs is another world war to sort out a few things. It would definitely kill off some of the over-breeding population which the world would be much better without. However, a war might just create peace again for a while until the next major disagreement. I

don’t condone war, but I do think there is need for action. We turn on the TV and another act of terrorism has happened. Does it really matter? Do we really need to know? It comes back to the fame game. They can’t get attention in a non lethal way so let’s suicide bomb the hell out of places. I mean really? How childish can you get? Stop giving these terrorists air time and it will all soon be over. I often say to people that I am not prejudiced I am just prejudiced against prejudiced people and that much is true. I live and let live. I have seen enough people wearing burqas and ordinary hijab. I say hello to them and smile. They have a right to wear whatever they want. A lot of people say that a woman should not be wearing a burqa in Australia but I say that it is her right to dress how she wants. She isn’t harming anyone so leave her alone. Mind your own business. You wear your bikinis. Why is it any different? Just because it is different to what you wear doesn’t make it wrong. I personally think that if a woman has to wear it, and feels forced to, then that isn’t at all beneficial. Women are equal in my mind. Some of these women may choose to. It is like me smoking. I choose to so leave me the hell alone. Stop forcing your viewpoint on me. My new lesbian friend Amelie says: “In this country they shouldn’t wear the burqa” and I said: “And if you say they can’t you will lose the right to wear your bikini”, all is fair in love and war. Again just another expression. Amelie often says: “I am not racist, I hate everyone equally”. I don’t hate anyone enough to care. If you are nice to me, I am nice to you. Simple. Mike and I have had a threesome with a girl and she said that she did not wish to repeat the action as she was not at all attracted to Mike and that I was too dry and bookish. Surprisingly, I get this a lot. Dry and bookish. I read. Since when did that become a crime? Ignorance tends to prevail in Australian society. I think Mike was a bit offended about the non attraction comment. I said that it doesn’t matter because I am attracted to him. I am consciously looking for people to swing with at the moment. I met this couple. They were into rugby and I found the conversation tedious and like pushing shit uphill. They weren’t particularly intelligent and the husband spoke about smashing people. I decided that they were people I didn’t particularly want to be around.

They were nice enough but we didn’t have anything in common. It is amazing how your education can alienated you sometimes. That is life. I just accept it now. We aren’t all the same and we aren’t all meant to be the same. The couple asked me what got me into swinging and I said the sensual experience and getting to meet interesting people. Open minded people. But I realise a lot are still close minded. That’s ok, because I don’t have any obligation to socialise with them. I told the couple that it was nice meeting them but wasn’t interested in any further contact because we had nothing in common. It’s honest. They didn’t take offense and felt the same. I’m making friends online. My time is limited. I can’t be bothered going to clubs. I met an interesting transgender person. She was much older than I was. She is university educated and has a postgraduate qualification. Her discipline – biology. I asked her if she was post op or pre op. She seemed offended. Or at least uncomfortable about the situation. I mean why? I think that it is a fair enough question. I was curious. I find the nature of transgender fascinating and intersexed people even more so. She knew from the age of five that she was in the wrong body. Imagine being imprisoned in the wrong body for your life. I find it fascinating though admittedly I don’t understand it as I don’t understand cutting. Why would you want to go through all of that just to change your sex? It isn’t for me to judge. She said that she liked girls. I said: “So you are gay then” matter-of-factly. She felt I was labelling her. I said that I was only making an observation. You are what you are. But in language we have descriptions for a reason – to discern between one thing and another. Just because you apply a description to something or a word, doesn’t mean you are judging. I tried to explain that apparently I have boundary issues. She seemed accepting of that and did not appear to judge me, although I get the impression she was uncomfortable for some reason. I don’t know. I explained how my father says that my emotions are inherently who I am. She took it differently to how I would have thought. She said that my father was accepting me for who I am. I tried to explain that this wasn’t the case. I have reasons for being unemotional. The more I see emotion in the world the more I realise that blatant emotion isn’t a good thing. We need to reason and

rationalise situations constantly if we are going to get anywhere. I mean people use their emotions to reason. I can’t see how the two can meet. It doesn’t make sense. It is a cognitive distortion. Emotional reasoning gets you nowhere. I feel therefore it is true. I think that Bethany sees the world in this way. I don’t. If I have a feeling it is just that – a feeling. It is not necessarily valid. If more people realised this there would be less self martyrdom in the world. I don’t like martyrs. Religious or otherwise.

***

I texted the transsexual today and said that I would like to catch up because she is an interesting person. Perhaps she is interested. Perhaps not. I told her that I was not everyone’s cup of tea. That is that. That is true. I am abnormal and I recognise that. If you judge me for it you can go screw yourself. If you just feel that we have nothing in common then say so and move on. She hasn’t texted back. Perhaps she is busy. Perhaps not. It doesn’t matter there are other people out there that will want to associate with me. I don’t want to make excuses for those that I don’t want to associate with. One of Bethany’s friends likes me and wanted to make “an appointment” to come to my flat to watch a movie. That is how sees the world. Life is full of “appointments” regardless if it is a social gathering or not. “Appointment”, a strange use of the word, it implies that it is obligatory. At first I said yes to the meeting. Then after becoming too difficult to deal with – I really couldn’t be bothered putting the effort in. Too much hard work. I cancelled on him. Then a day later he rang me giving me the third degree about why I had cancelled. I told him that I just couldn’t be bothered. He was offended. He said: “If you don’t want to hang out with me and be my friend, just tell me so.” I didn’t say anything. I don’t want to particularly want to socialise with him but I don’t owe him an explanation. I felt like saying to him I am indifferent to you and really don’t care. Anyway, I didn’t and as I said, I owe him nothing. The weather is foreboding. It rained today in the middle of summer. It just made it muggy. I hate the heat and I don’t like “El sol” bearing down on

me. I just stay out of the sun in the middle of the heat. I only do something in it if I absolutely have to. I don’t really like the pelting rain either as it whips at me like masochistic lover. I couldn’t be bothered entertaining someone that was too much work in this weather. It all seemed like too much bother. But that’s it. I have offended yet another person. I offended my Aunt by telling her that she was being aggressive. I don’t care. She was aggressive and it wasn’t my fault. She owns her own feelings. I don’t take responsibility for them. You don’t make someone anything. You don’t make someone angry or upset. They get angry or upset. They can choose to look at it a different way. The transsexual saw a different view of my father to my own. She doesn’t know him. That is ok. She is entitled to her own opinion. We all have them. I miss Mike. I miss drinking. I am on antibiotics and will get sick if I drink. He is coming over in a few days and I look forward to seeing him. It is a pity I can’t get drunk. I am in the mood to. I am not an alcoholic and even if I was it would be none of your business. I just like the effect of Mike’s homebrew spirits. I don’t know what we will do in a few days. Talk as usual I should imagine. I can tolerate repetitive conversation when I am drunk but not while I am sober. Mike gets a bit repetitive when drunk. I told him so and he said: “Thanks” sarcastically. Well it is true. He should know that I don’t mean offense by it. That I am just stating the facts. That is them. It doesn’t mean that his conversations are less interesting. It is just when I have heard the same story about his ex, I don’t want to hear it again. I think he was hurt by his exes but won’t admit it. He does talk about enough. He keeps seeing one of his exes around his suburb even though they broke up some twenty years ago. It reminds him of the four years of his life he wasted being with her. Hopefully, I am not a waste of time. I do like his company. I am not in a hurry to change anything. Sometimes when I am meeting people and I am bored, I feel like saying: “Could you please talk about something interesting?” That is it. That is why I like the educated and autodidactic people. They have always got something interesting to say. Or ready to teach you something new. It is a good thing. I don’t regret getting an education but it has most certainly alienated me from

my father. We are estranged now. I can’t help that. The more you learn the more you realise you have to learn. It is just a matter-of-fact and the way the cookie crumbles. Sometimes I wish I had simplicity, but often with that comes ignorance and a closed mind. There is nothing wrong with being simplistic but if you don’t understand something say so. Don’t make out that you know the truth about everything. After all the truth is debatable. Is there truth in anything? You have your own self created truth. My father says: “I know you want to be honest and live by that principle, but there is a difference between being brutally honest and hurtful and being tactful.” Tact is bullshit. A spade is a spade. You can dress it up and call it a shovel if you like but that doesn’t change the fact that it is a spade and always will be. It is a matter of perception. Making love or fucking. Both are the same. Being tactful. Hmmm. Euphemisms. I can’t be bothered. I don’t make someone take offense. They either do or they don’t. It is their choice. The transsexual texted me back and said that she’d be happy to catch up occasionally. I am going to see her at the Pride Fair Day this year. I’m taking my lesbian friend, Amelie or perhaps she is taking me to it. It will be nice socialising with open minded people. I find solace in difference. I find aggravation in convention. I am on an adult sex site combing for threesomes and group sex. I was supposed to meet an open minded bisexual and go to the theatre. The first time she stood me up saying that her father is ill. I don’t believe her. This seems like an excuse to me. Anyway, we rearranged and planned to go see “The Bookbinder” at The Fringe Festival. She asked me to purchase the ticket, with the promise that she’d pay me back. I said: “You better not stand me up”. She told me she didn’t play games. Guess what? She stood me up again saying that she’d had emergency surgery. I was not sympathetic. She let me know an hour before the show. I messaged her and told her that I did not like game players and that she really owed me money and that I’d doubt I’d see it out of her. Bitch. Don’t play on my heart strings because you are too timid to admit that you don’t want to meet up in the first place. A spade is a spade. Just tell me so. I said to her that I wanted no further contact and I deleted her number. I was so furious. I don’t like being mucked

around. I didn’t believe her. People need to be more honest. And I need to remember that people make excuses and have less trust. Yet everything in me wants to trust the person. Trusting people is not a fault. “The Bookbinder” was good. I escaped into my childhood years and even though there were heaps of children there they didn’t make a sound. Well behaved children. If I believed in a class I’d have to say they are children of a better class of people. If low socio-economic children turned up they wouldn’t know how to conduct themselves in cultured society and no doubt would be running all over the set while the actor is performing. I may not have much money but I like to think I know how to conduct myself. I’d never smash my partner in the face. And I have better things to talk about than rugby. In Australian colloquial speech they call them “bogans”, “yobbos” or “Occas”. I don’t use such terms. I just roll my eyes at such people. They are uneducated. I am not so we don’t really have a common interest and that is ok. So I don’t mix with them. Yet they are the ones that say to me: “You are doing yet another degree?” and I feel like answering: “You are spitting out yet another kid?” but I don’t. I don’t know why I don’t. I most certainly think it. I just don’t want the confrontation that would come from it. I tire of confrontation. Amelie rang me. I said to her that I was not concerned that she had stood me up and not to worry about paying me back as I realise she doesn’t have much money. Amelie told me that I irritated her. Rather confused I asked her what was going on. Then she shouted: “How dare you accuse me of standing you up? I was in surgery. Not everything goes your way you know?” I remained silent as I did not know what to make of the confrontation. I would have thought that paying someone back the twenty-five dollars would have been the polite thing to do. Clearly not. Now that she’d rung me back I had her number stored in my phone and I once again decided to add it to my address book. I thought that in the scheme of things this didn’t really matter and that I would learn from this next time by simply not offering to buy the ticket and leave it up to her to do so. That is life. You get burnt sometimes, nothing is perfect. Twenty-five dollars is not the end of the world but it is the principle. If someone doesn’t do the right thing, they don’t get offered a second chance on

something. I like Amelie. I irritate her, so what? She irritates me but it is the good that we get out of the relationship that matters. It is a two way street. We both enjoy each other’s company at times. Though truth be told Mike doesn’t give me a good reason to get irritated. The more time I spend with him the more I find I like him. There is more to education than having a degree. Some people are naturally intelligent and find the world of books and documentaries engaging. I was like that before I started university. I know people who are autodidactic and strive to gain wealth of knowledge. Mike is one of them. He has a degree but that isn’t all he has. He studied computer science many years ago and no doubt his qualifications are way out of date. However, he knows a lot about the financial market and this is because he used his intelligence to gain knowledge. He says that I am one of the most intelligent women he has met. I mean really? I am average in intelligence and use whatever was given to me to learn about things I don’t know. It doesn’t make me special. I am average looking with an average intelligence. I just have worked hard. I don’t care if you think I am intelligent, foolish or just stupid. It doesn’t concern you so why should it intimidate you? People let themselves be ruled by the emotions. I believe there is such a thing as emotional intelligence as well as IQ. Bethany doesn’t have emotional intelligence. She is too willed by the outside world. She has plenty of IQ but doesn’t use it half the time. I suppose that is what you call “being stupid” as opposed to actually stupid. I hope that makes sense. If it doesn’t, don’t bother to try and wrap your mind around it. The weather has been sticky. Wet and humid. I don’t like this weather. It reminds me of Brisbane and Bali. Tropics I can do without. Bali was interesting enough but the weather was horrible. I went there some months ago. The people were poor but happy. I sense there is a lot of competition to improve their circumstance there. Mike said: “This is free markets in its raw form!” I thought: “How obscure!” I suppose that you could see it as capitalism in progress. But many are hungry. I wonder how many times a day they eat whilst serving us fat westerners gourmet cuisines. I can’t help but envy their simplicity at times, but I wouldn’t want to go hungry to achieve this. Everything

is cheap there. Including life. Westerners are the pigs from Animal Farm exploiting the proletariat, or the Tsars of Russia abusing their surfs. I wonder if they hate us. I would. If I could hate anything at all. Mike says that they are the greatest of opportunists. I suppose he is right in a way. That reminds of Amelie. She is on unemployment benefit and is made to do “voluntary work” in order to obtain her benefits. I don’t know if I agree. It takes precious time away from looking for work and puts the unemployed in community service like criminals. This is why I don’t agree. I understand that voluntary work is most useful to society, but should be on a voluntary basis. What next? I just don’t know. I suggested to Amelie that she might want to go and study at college to obtain the qualification that she is looking for work in. She’s intelligent. Much more than Bethany. Another autodidactic. She is dejected, subjected and rejected by society. So am I. But I don’t care. The weather doesn’t care, so why should I? The weather just is. Just as I am. I can’t help but think how unusual this weather is for summer. As Peter Garrett said in Beds are Burning: “The western desert lives and breathes in 45 degrees”, but not today. Quite unusual. Mike is a wannabe politician. He is an Australian Democrat. He stood in the last election for the senate. I wanted to vote him just because I could. However he was out of my electorate. I was a couple of suburbs away at the time. I think he ended up voting for the shooters and fisherman party. Yes, we have all manner of weird parties in Australia, including the sex party that seems to think that sex will solve everything. I am an Australian Greens voter. I believe we need to look after the environment. Now Mike sees this as close to communist as you can get. He is wrong. Although in reality I am somewhere between communist and green. I believe in the “one child” policy that China endorsed in the 70s and 80s. More of the world needs to look at its over- breeding and think: “Hang on a minute, can we feed all these mouths?” I believe that people should have licenses to have children. But oh, no. It is a right. Something I don’t agree with. Children are a privilege. As Michael Jackson said in Wanna be startin’ somethin’: “If you can’t feed your baby, then don’t have a baby”. It is so true. Yet I see so many on welfare spitting out an

extra child for benefits. And what about India? They can’t seem to stop breeding either. Wake up world. Thinking of Michael Jackson. He’s dead. Society killed him. They used to call him “Whacko Jacko” and he was made out to be a paedophile. I doubt that he was. He loved children but that didn’t mean that he slept with them. Again, the paedophile paranoid society prevails. I empathise with Michael Jackson. He was segregated from society and all his fame never brought him happiness and that is apparent. As he once sang, They don’t really care about us in: “kick me, kike me, don’t you black or white me” and “but if Martin Luther was livin’, he wouldn’t let this be” and it is true. All I’ve got to say about Michael and myself to pinch a phrase: “The don’t really care about us”. Society wants to judge what is different. Kick me. Bash me. Trash me. You don’t care. Michael Jackson had it right in Earth Song: “what about sunrise, what about rain, what about all the things you said we were to gain” and “what have we done to the world, look what we’ve done, what about all the peace, that you pledge your only son”. He has a point. Perhaps if there were no religion we’d have peace and no planetary destruction. People think because “God said that they had domain over the planet” they can do what the hell they like to it, and “smite the infidel”. Richard Dawkins has a point in his book The God Delusion. Not to mention Thomas Paine’s work: The Age of Reason: Being an investigation of true and fabulous theology. Dawkins states that the world is deluding itself with religion and that these outdated ideas are the main cause for wars. I have to agree. Dawkins says: “...I am going to stick with ‘delusion’, and I need to justify my use of it. The Penguin English Dictionary defines a delusion as a ‘false belief or impression’. (p 27). When I read Dawkins’ work, I kept thinking of Lennon’s song Imagine. “Imagine there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try, no hell below us, above us only sky, imagine all the people living for today...” and “nothing to kill or die for and no religion too”. Then while reading Paine’s work I thought about the title round and round in my head. It would swell up and shrink into nothingness. There it was going on my head John Farnham’s Age of Reason: “What about the world around us? How can we fail

to see? What about the Age of Reason?” I live life by reason. We live. We die. Kick me. Kike me. You don’t even like me. Should I care? No. Mother was coloured. She married white because she was ashamed of her race. She said the best thing she could do was to marry white so she could breed the black out of the family. Her brother didn’t feel this way and much to the family’s disgust, he married black. I identify with the aboriginal here in Australia as my people have had a similar history. I am of slave stock and native American, though if you met me you’d think me white. I was walking down the road with my cousin in America and someone said to me: “Hey, whitie why you mixing with that demographic?” I told them to watch their tongue. I said she was my first cousin. Looks can be deceiving. If you don’t understand that is your problem. We are all human and bleed the same blood. I feel bad that mother was ashamed of who she was. There is no need to be. We are who we are. As Michael Jackson said in They don’t really care about us: “Don’t you black or white me.” Fuck your labels. I went to the theatre and watched an Aboriginal production. I got talking to the cast. I asked them each were their people were from. They were a mix of tribes unified in Aboriginality. They looked at me peculiarly. “Why do you ask?” one said. “Because I am interested. I am Cree.” I answered. One looked at me. Her eyes narrowed. I explained that our people had a similar history. Drugs, alcohol, socio-economic problems and teenage pregnancy. We too are oppressed. The aboriginal elder looked at me and said: “I never would have guessed. I just thought you were some white fella.” I explained that in colour that I was, and that I knew how my family had been treated for being black and indigenous. I have seen racism first hand and I don’t like it. I think people are people. I have had Indian lovers. I have had Asian lovers. I have had white lovers and black lovers. We are all human with wants and desires. Not that I desire much. I am fairly content with where my life is going. I am truly in the minority. Mixed race and intersexed. I was born with both. I was operated on. Do I feel any less female? Not really. I notice some masculine things about myself but that doesn’t bother me. Michael Jackson truly had it right: “It doesn’t matter if you’re black or white”. Michael had an awful childhood and an awful

father figure. My mother wasn’t so grand either, but that is life. She’s dead now. Her opinions don’t matter anymore. Though my Dad nags me about my social graces, I suppose in the scheme of things his opinions don’t matter either. He doesn’t understand me. He isn’t me. Why should he? But he doesn’t attempt to. That is annoying.

***

I was thinking of death today and in the various ways one can die. Defenestration used to be the main death penalty for homosexuals once. I wonder what it would be like jumping out of a window or being thrown out of one. Then there is seppuku, Japanese ritual suicide, it involves disembowelment of the individual. Then there is euthanasia which is the supposed “dying with dignity rather than in pain”. I know someone who euthanized. He was dying of a dreadful cancer. He had a suicide pill that he had gotten from somewhere. He took it. His friends and family respected his right to die peacefully. That’s the thing isn’t it? Suicide is suicide whichever dressy label you give it. Others were mortified at him having euthanized. I thought it is his right to decide how he goes if he has the choice. Not to mention that humans have been coming up with creative ways to execute people. Electric chairs, hanging, the guillotine and lethal injection. There is one horrible way to go that outdoes them all. Scaphism. This is the process where there person to be killed was tied between two hollowed out canoes. The person in question was fed milk and honey in order bring on liquidising faeces that would attract insects. Milk and honey were applied to sensitive areas and the person was left to be devoured by insects. Now you really think I am sociopath. But you are wrong. That is not me at all. You don’t know me, so leave your judgement at the door. No matter the method. The outcome is the same death and absolute nothingness. A friend rang me. The conversation was strained. He was stressed. He said he was booking a flight to Canada. I asked him why he was going to Canada. He told me that he was going for a wedding. It seemed that it was too

much hassle for him, the cost and time involved going. I said: “You don’t have to, you know”. He lives the world of “shoulds”, “have tos”, “musts” and “oughts”. It is just obligation. No one has to do anything. You don’t “have to” live if you don’t want to. You can slash your wrists and that is your choice, but don’t put the obligation on me. It isn’t my fault, as Bethany would suggest. I am not responsible for someone else’s reaction. My friend told me that I went to Brisbane like that was something like a “must” or “have to”. Truth is I didn’t have to. I decided that I was not going to return to Brisbane next year. It is not worth the hassle, as the prime reason I went there was to see my father. I am going to save the five hundred dollars and put it down on paying off my student loans. I want to buy a flat eventually and with debt hanging over my head this will be hard. I don’t “have to” pay off the debt yet as I am not earning enough but I choose to. I don’t want the debt. I want to be free of the government and banks. They are means to an end like money. Believe what you like, you don’t “have to” do anything. Life is about choice. I caught up with Bethany today. I wasn’t feeling well. I made a simple lunch for the two of us. I often plan out my meals by the week, to avoid buying too many groceries as this saves money. I actually get a degree of satisfaction out of saving money and living within my means. I don’t see why people spend so much on stuff. Bethany says that I am some kind of super hero and has nicked named me: “Generic Girl”. I don’t understand paying lots of money for colourful packets when you can get the same thing in a packet with minimal advertising. I don’t understand Bethany’s attraction to colourful shiny things. It isn’t me. She wonders why she is always broke. One day I put my idea to the test. I picked up the packet of generic frozen fish and read the ingredients and then proceeded to read the most expensive brand I could find. Both were the same. They were Alaskan Pollock. I bought the generic brand with two extra fillets of fish in it for half the price. Same fish. Who cares? You pay for the advertising. That is consumer society for you. Expensive means better. Not really. Generic wheat biscuits are no different from the expensive ones. They are still wheat.

After lunch my headache started to pass. I still wasn’t in the mood for socialising so I put Bethany, the thirty-one year old child in front of the idiot box for babysitting. I wanted to tell her to go away so that I could crawl into my cave in silence. I didn’t. She made the effort to come see me. I suppose I appreciate that. I just wasn’t feeling overly sociable. Sometimes I appreciate the company of my single serve friends knowing that they will never expect anything of me. However, I think knowing someone also has its merits. My father doesn’t think I have many friends. I have about seven to eight close ones. That’s all I need. Do you think the more popular I am makes me more worthwhile or something? I don’t know. As I have told you before I don’t believe in self worth. It is a human made construct that people agonise over for too long. Bethany seemed content enough for me to go and lie down with the awful headache I was suffering. She had no expectation for me to entertain her, which was good. I must admit for once I was pleased to see her. Her company was more pleasant than usual. I didn’t see Mike on the weekend. He was feeling run down. I miss him. I was on antibiotics anyhow and wouldn’t have been able to drink. I do like to have a drink with Mike on the weekend and listen to bad 80s songs which take me back to my childhood. Not all my childhood was misery. The fashion was bad in a good way and so was the music. The music actually meant something. Not like today’s pop that sings about breaking up and falling in love. The music like You’re the Voice by John Farnham spoke about political issues. Not to mention Midnight Oil’s Blue Sky Mine which touched on environmental issues. Then there was We are the World sung by various pop stars in America to feed starving children in Africa. Where has the activism gone? I wonder. People don’t fight anymore. They sit on their Ipods and Ifones becoming zombies and taking the next selfie for their self proclaimed fame. I don’t want to be famous. I want to make a difference. My immortality is my writing. My finger print is the difference I make in the world. I think Mike knows this and this is why he calls me a “pinko hippy”. I don’t care. He does it in jest. He seems to respect everything that I am. In a lot of ways we think the same. We came from the 70s and 80s when things mattered. Generation X are amongst the most educated in the world. Generation Y is the self obsessed “me, me” generation.

And the millennials the Generation after – What will become of them? Who knows. I’d love to be able to time travel. But alas, I live and die. Mike coined a phrase: “Don’t trust anyone born after 1980”. I don’t know if I agree. They are wannabe rock stars. I don’t understand why you want fame. A handful of friends, an occupation that sees that you don’t live in debt and living within your means, are all that you need. Money is not evil. Money is necessary to keep you going. It feeds you. It clothes you and it houses you. I don’t need luxury. I like to experience things. If money will give me that then good. Sometimes the best things in life are free like the view of the stars on a Saturday night in the Pilbra. You can’t beat what those aboriginal people admired for thousands of years. Money can’t give you a wonderful life. Mike sees money as freedom. I see money as a means to an end. I want to live. I don’t need a five star experience while on holiday. I don’t even need a three star experience. I just need a bed and a shower and a place to lay my head at night as Mike realised in Bali. This is why I said I will buy a flat. Yes a flat. Not some fancy arse apartment. I need a place to call home permanently. I tire of moving. As a renter you tend to move a lot. I don’t like that. I don’t believe in the home owner’s dream particularly. I just want to own my own home so that I don’t have to move again and the cost of living goes down after you pay it off. Rent just keeps going up and up. I don’t really want to sit at home on government benefits watching a string of useless soapies. I want to experience life. After all when you die. You die with memories. Not assets or material things. How someone can become attached to a car or house I will never understand. Shelter is shelter. Whether it be a tent or a Caravan, you are protected from the elements. I have been camping before at folk festivals and opted for sleeping under a tree rather than stay in a tent. It was a nice experience falling asleep to the Milky Way and Southern Cross. I somehow slept sounder. I haven’t been sleeping too well recently. My mind has been racing. I think too much and about what I am not too sure. I just have this nagging feeling I am forgetting something important. It sometimes haunts my nightmares. This dark cloud of nothingness. I am not sure that I understand

its meaning, that is, if there is a meaning. Perhaps I am just stressed and nothing more. I don’t know. I went to the Theatre with Amelie the other day. We went to see “Mercy Seat”. It was about a relationship in a post-apocalyptic Australia. Despite the devastation going around the central characters, they were still concerned with their relationship troubles. The male character said that something to the effect that the devastation was grave yet Christmas and Australia Day would still come and people would move on and forget about the terror. People are numb to terror in the world. I am numb to the world. I don’t understand why people are so concerned with themselves when planet Earth is indifferent to their pathetic woes. If you just broke up with your boyfriend the tsunami doesn’t care. If you lost your mother in an earthquake the tectonic movements don’t care. If you lost your house in the raging bushfire the smouldering embers don’t care. Why should you care? Because it affects you. That is the only time you really care right? Human beings are self-centred and selfish. We like to think that the world has compassion but the truth is that people do humanitarian things for their own self-gratification. Amelie doesn’t have very much money so I fed her with vegetables in cheese sauce. Basic and cheap but giving. Did I do this for my own gratification? No, I did this because I wanted to, because I like her company. I don’t have much money now but I have lived on less. I understand poverty. Mike is a business man. He came around last night, but he makes us moonshine to save money. He doesn’t see the point in paying taxes when he pays enough through the goods and services tax and income tax. He doesn’t understand why you can’t make your own spirits. I don’t either. I don’t understand why you can’t grow your own marijuana either. As long as you are not selling it for a profit, it shouldn’t matter what you do in the privacy of your own home. I’d grow my own tobacco plants if I could. That is highly illegal. And why? Simply because the government cannot get their tons of taxes off you. Yet you can grow your own fruit and vegetables and not pay GST on them. I don’t understand why alcohol or tobacco is any different. The government over regulates everything. I have friends that are libertarians and anarchists. I can

actually understand why. However we do need regulations. We need laws. Laws are there to keep society functioning apparently. Then there are those unwritten “social laws”, wear a bra, shave your legs, don’t have too many sexual partners, have children, act your age, take responsibility and get a real job. Somehow, as a woman if you don’t conform to these conventions you are strange and an outcast. I know this too well. Well, fuck you society. There are no laws that I have to wear a bra etc. Fuck you! Mike and I had a wonderful night together. I got drunk because I wanted to. I smoked a stream of cigarettes. So did he. We listened to some bad 80’s music and passed out in bed. At 2 am he woke me to mate. I was tired. He didn’t care too much. I said I wanted to sleep but I didn’t object to having sex. It was good. I enjoyed it. Though I was enjoying my sleep as well. After he ejaculated at least I got another 6 hours before I was hassled again for sex. He wanted to have sex this morning and I stated that I had to have something to drink. My mouth was dry and I can’t give good oral unless I have a drink of water. He accepted that. I yearned for a cigarette so I had one and then came back in. We fucked. I enjoyed it. I feel the after effect. I am not sore but I feel where he has been inside me for some hours after the fact. Mike left early to go home. I was glad. I had things to do. Later on I went shopping and arranged to meet Amelie to give her some of Mike’s moonshine so that she can infuse it with different flavours. She enjoys doing that. At the same time, Bethany’s friend, the paedophile gave me some breakfast cereals that had been sitting his is cupboard for a couple of months. I willingly accepted it. It would save my money and would not waste food. When I arrived home, Bethany came over. I gave her some of the cereal because she too does not have much money. She told me that she now has a boyfriend. I tried not to laugh when she told me. I asked if it was the guy that comes around to screw her every six months. She said it was. I asked her when she’d last seen him. She told me it was over a year ago. I asked how it was possible to be in a relationship with someone you haven’t seen in a year. She said that he’d recently contacted her on facebook and asked for her number which he’d lost. She said they spoke on the phone and had promised to marry her in

secret. I couldn’t contain myself. I said to her: “So you think you are engaged?” She replied with a “Yes”. I laughed harder. I told her that he was using her for sex. She was offended. I said that it was ok to have a casual relationship, but that is all it was and not to delude herself. She cried. I felt uncomfortable. Then she tried to guilt trip me saying that I made her feel bad. I said I would not take responsibility for her feelings and that it was ludicrous to think that she was engaged. I asked her if she loved him. She said she didn’t know. At that point I felt sorry for her and realised that she was in love with the idea of love but had never felt it. I haven’t either. As I said, it is a human abstract. It is not tangible. I couldn’t help but laugh. It was incredibly funny. I’ve never heard something so absurd. I fed Bethany because she had no money. I don’t have much money either but I always have food in the cupboard despite the fact that I smoke. Bethany is a brand shopper and doesn’t portion her food. She has welfare mentality. When she has money she has to spend it in order to feel rich for a few days out of fortnight. I watch every penny. I know I could save a lot more if I quit smoking but I don’t want to. I never go hungry. I never go without smokes either. If my budget is tight I roll my own and live on sausages, vegetables, rice and polony sandwiches if I need to. You can get really creative with ramen noodles if you need to. Add some vegetables and a cut up sausage and you have an instant filling meal. Get a credit card. Get a car loan. Hock yourself up to the eyeballs and for what? I have known so many on welfare, that have hocked their TV to buy food. I have never been that desperate. I just make money work for me. I live within my means. Yes I am a cheap skate. But at least I don’t go without. At least I have minimal debt. Do you? I remembered what that woman that Mike and I had the threesome had said to me. She said that she’d see me on “Super Scrimpers”. I asked what that was. She told me that it was a TV show about tight arses like me. I became indignant. I thought to myself: “You never seem to have any money yet you are working full time. You should have more to show for it.” I said nothing. I couldn’t be bothered arguing with a manic shopper who can’t budget. Don’t come to me when you are having financial trouble to borrow some money even

though you have more than me. I was irritated. She had also previously said that I was too “bookish” for her and that “Mike didn’t turn her on”. I just thought: “Why did you let him fuck you then you, hypocrite?” Mike was surprised that I was not at all jealous. I explained to him that I was not judgemental and was open to all sorts of sex. Once when he was drunk he called me a lesbian. I told him that I was not lesbian. He corrected himself and said “bisexual then?” I explained that I was not in the slightest bisexual. I am just am who I am. Sexuality doesn’t concern me. What your sexual identity is doesn’t matter to me. It is none of my business, unless I am having sex with you. He wanted a threesome and I gave him one he was surprised that I even let it happen and that I was looking out for women to do this with. I’m open. That is me. If you don’t like it, go jump of the nearest cliff. I don’t care what you do, so mind your own business. I thought where I might go on holiday this year. Would it be Bali? I definitely don’t want to go to Kuta again if I go there. I talked with Mike and he mentioned that Adelaide might be an option. Upon investigating the holiday in Adelaide is a similar price to Bali. It might be nice to go to Adelaide this year, but I explained to Mike that we’d have to eat at home. Cheaper. In a way I want to go to Adelaide as we would be employing Australians rather than being fat animal farm pigs lording over the proletariat. I kind of like that. I don’t like taking advantage of people in the third world it doesn’t make me feel in the slightest good about being a humanitarian. However I do realise that those in Bali rely on us Westerners to make money. We bring much needed money to their economy. However it is good to support your own country as well. I am undecided. I will leave the deciding factor up to Mike. I get the strangest feeling that Mike will want to go to Adelaide. It was what he mentioned. We can’t afford to stay in a hotel in Australia. It would just be a hostel or a Caravan Park. But that is ok. I don’t mind. I’ve never been your five star yuppy living beyond your means type of person. I like humble dwellings. What I rent is humble. And when I buy my first property it will be humble. I have no desire for fancy arsed dwellings. I’d rather spend less on a dwelling and be in a better area than pay the same price for a fancy dwelling in a less desirable suburb. I don’t like low

socio-economic areas in Australia. It attracts unsavoury characters. They live there because they can’t afford anything else. Although I use the word: “Fuck”, I don’t want to particularly hear it being uttered in every second sentence or being given a list of profanity for simply not giving someone a cigarette. If you want to kill yourself – don’t ask me to help you. Buy your own darn cigarettes. I do. I lived in a low socio-economic suburb when I was growing up. The calibre of people was less than desirable. They think that becoming a motor mechanic, carpenter or living on benefits is a desirable outcome. I am not a snob and don’t particularly have the ambitions that I once had when I was young. Mike said to me, I should become a financial advisor. I am not interested in the stress. I want a job with little responsibility that remunerates enough so that I can pay off my dwelling by being the skin flint that I am in a few short years. I don’t expect an inheritance from my father. If my stepmother has anything to do with that, she’ll ensure I get nothing and it is not like my well off Aunt wants to speak to me anymore. You know what? I don’t care. I get more satisfaction out of earning my qualifications, friends and remuneration far more than I would about winning a lottery. Mike said that I should fight for my inheritance. I said that I can’t be bothered. I don’t have the attitude that I am entitled to anything. Although, I have lived on welfare before it is a means to an end and not the desirable outcome that so many others that I grew up with see it as. Welfare is a stop gap – to support those in need. It isn’t a right or entitlement. I’d rather work for my own money – even as cleaner. I give you my time you give me money. Sounds good to me. Mike doesn’t like working – which is why he runs his own business. He is lazy and he is entitled to be, he isn’t draining anyone but himself of money when he fails to put in the effort. Oh, yes last year’s school twentieth year school reunion was interesting. I was the only woman besides a lesbian without children. Most were good little breeders and the average family was four to six. The males were trades people and the women worked in menial jobs without much education. I was the only one who was doing my PhD in our year and one out of six that had completed a degree at all. Most didn’t even know what a professional doctorate or doctor

of philosophy was. I explained that it was one of the highest degrees that one could obtain. They seemed surprised that there was anything past an undergraduate level. They nicknamed me “Professor”. I have no desire to become a professor. It was beyond their comprehension that a professorship was a qualification beyond a PhD. They have no education. They weren’t even autodidactic. I was miles apart from them and felt awkward. I wanted to talk about things that matter rather than comparing babies blowing raspberries. I didn’t fit in at school and I didn’t fit in now. I was a stranger to them. Ignored. Nothing in common. It doesn’t surprise me. Many had been in jail and others were screwed because of long term drug use. Many of the school rejects had committed suicide as they saw no hope in life. And you know what? I actually can understand this school of thought. If you cannot escape hell on earth as I had. What is the point of living? I escaped my hell hole. I was down when I lived in Brisbane. I lived in my parent’s shadow. I lived in an area where crime was prevalent because my father and mother would not move to a more decent suburb. They wanted the big house and big garden. I have learnt that I don’t need that. I grew up in a cloud weighed down in depression. People abused you on a daily basis and no people wanted to keep you imprisoned. I remember contemplating not going to my high school reunion and then I thought I would out of curiosity to see if people were still ensnared in the bear trap and they were. I was determined to get away from that and I would have amputated my own leg to walk freely if I needed to. One day through a decision of my own I escaped my ghetto. I only once lived in a low socio-economic area of Perth and then moved out after six months of hearing the locals bash into the wives, shooting up in the street and profanity which caused my stomach to churn. Profanity has a place, but not in every day speech. It is used to emphasise and explain what can not otherwise be explained in simple terms. I was talking to Amelie and she said that there had been a fatal stabbing in the place I grew up in (where she lived for twelve years). This doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. What brought it home for Amelie was that the stabbing took place, next door to where she used to live. I suppose that would

be a bit of a shock. Not for me. I know that place too well and spent up until eighteen living there. I knew what to expect of that place. You get used to the drive by shootings, drug culture and general criminal behaviour when you live there. It becomes a way of life. It is no wonder you watch your back. When you are exposed to extreme violence it becomes a way of life and you either become violent yourself or shy away from such behaviour. I don’t even like confrontation let alone violence. That’s life and I suppose it always will be. I was talking to Bethany’s boring friend today. His friend suggested that he do some volunteer work to get him out of his shell and comfort zone. I said to him: “I hear that you going to be doing some volunteer work with the museum.” He tried to find excuses for why he was content on welfare and how he has social anxiety. That stops him? I mean really? I don’t like people sometimes, but I get on with life. Bethany’s friend takes stock in science and throws Murphy’s law at me. “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”, well if that is true, “To every action, there is a equal and opposite reaction.” Therefore, “Anything that can go right, will go right” and “Anything that can stay stagnant, will stay stagnant.” He didn’t know what to say to that. It arrested his excuses. He had no argument and quickly got off the phone to me, which pleased me as I honestly find the guy boring and unstimulating. I don’t want to know about his menial house duties. There is more to life than that. I don’t understand human relationships. I can intellectualise them but don’t really understand them. I have been called aloof and abrasive. I am actually quite a friendly personality. I am friendly from the outset. You don’t really need to get to know me. I find conversation that makes me think stimulating. So many people don’t like to think. I get the feeling that Bethany’s friend who I will call “Mr Boring” is like that. Thinking is threatening to him. At the best of times he doesn’t listen to you. The conversation revolves around him and what he gets out of something. He is the sort of person that robotically says: “How are you?” and doesn’t care about the answer. I find that with the checkout operators in the supermarket. Once one asked me how I was going. I tested them to see if they were listening or really cared. By saying that, I was contemplating suicide. The response came as I expected: “That’s good”. I

thought, just serve me and spare me the greeting if you aren’t really interested in me. I can’t be bothered in your programmed responses. I was just talking to another friend who is looking after her boyfriend’s autistic child. He seems obsessed with gaming consuls and when it is taken from him, he becomes erratic. She said she felt like she had failed as a stepmother. I said that it wasn’t easy dealing with someone who is autistic even if they are high functioning. Michel was autistic. That didn’t work out between us. I tried. I sent her some information on autism. It was all that I could do. She needs to understand where the child is coming from and go with it. Bethany said she thought that she had autism and I laughed. She got indignant. I said: “You are feeling indignant about my laughing response”. She admitted that she did. I told her if she was autistic that she wouldn’t have really responded to my form of emotion. She asked me how I knew this. I explained that for the longest time she was living with an autistic and didn’t even realise it. Bethany wants to diagnose herself. She wants to pop the magic pill like “Mr Boring” that will make everything better. Disorders are highly complex. People are highly complex creatures. It is the nurture versus nature debate. Would I be the way I am in all my complexity if I had not lived with such adversity? Or Would I be destined to turn out the way I am with all my problems without it? I am of the belief that it is both. I will turn out how I am meant to be but environment will play a role. Just look at the way rocks are. They are shaped by the environment yet still remain a rock. You can’t make a rock something else. It just is. I am just who I am. You judge me for it. I really don’t care. I remembered my Goth days and realised that my long black hair has since grown out. I wear more colourful clothing now. I don’t want to conform. I wear a dress because I like it, not because you think I look good in it. I’ve always been a fan of Victorian dress so can’t help but admire the steam punk fashion statement. It is interesting. It is creative. I like creative and different. It is nice to think that people shake it up a little. I don’t really see the appeal of wearing all black. I don’t really see the appeal of wearing make-up unless you are acting on the stage or on set. Then I can understand it. There is something to be said for the punk and gothic culture. They put so much effort looking

different but yet appear the same. Sameness is boring. If everything you do every day is the same, you may as well die. Or at least I think so. Some people like conformity and sameness. It makes them feel accepted. I have to ask the question: “What does it matter if you are accepted or not?” It amounts to the same. Absolutely nothing. The same fate awaits us all. Death. If you are going to die and it is inevitable you may as well start living or just kill yourself. The choice is yours. At least for the moment I have decided to live. I thought about American Beauty and that line: “See the way the handle on those pruning shears matches her garden clogs? That’s not an accident.” I thought about it and it went around in my head. People try so hard to conform and they have to have the matching IKEA furniture to go with the matching kitchen. It is sterile. It lacks individuality. It is just the same. Do you really want to be the same? I don’t. I am content with being different. I thought about the book Fight Club and remembered a distinct line saying: “And I wasn’t the only slave to my nesting instinct. The people I know who used to sit in the bathroom with pornography, now they sit in the bathroom with their IKEA furniture catalogue.” I don’t have one piece of IKEA furniture. Just op shop buys. I don’t find it necessary to have a matching dinner set. I don’t even have a matching cutlery set. Not one thing is the same in my household. That is it, isn’t it? Materialism seems to make the world go around. I don’t understand that. I like my mismatched furniture. Things I got for cheap and am recycling what would otherwise go into landfill. I like the fact that some of my best furniture was gathered in a verge collection. It was free. It was not going to landfill and was being recycled. I don’t understand the throw away culture but I clearly don’t understand the hoarder mentality either. I like to think that I am somewhere in between. If it is old and no use, then throw it out. But don’t just go buy what is in fashion and disregard the old. It makes no sense. If it is able to be used then use it. If it is rubbish then throw it. My father and Bethany’s mother are hoarders of junk. They collect years worth of crap. Perhaps living in clutter makes them feel secure. Perhaps it is like a barricade to the outside world. I really don’t know. When I moved from the three bedroom place, I discarded some furniture in the verge collection that I did not need. But

I did not go and buy new furniture to replace it. I was told by a friend that my couches were dusty and that I should throw them out. It only had cat hair on it. I got the vacuum cleaner to it after I moved and it looked perfectly fine. From time to time, I have to brush the excess cat hair off my couch but that comes with having a pet. I don’t particularly care. It isn’t hard to clean something up and keep it in good shape so why bother about it? Someone recently looked at Bethany’s flat and compared it with mine. I said that Bethany’s flat was better looking however it came with a bunch of functional problems like clogged sinks that the landlord has still done nothing about. My flat is cheaper and in a better suburb. Yes, it is smaller. But smaller means easier to keep clean. It is all that my cat and I need. We do not need a big place. Bethany wanted to live with someone to diffuse the rent so clearly she needed a two bedroom flat when mine is one. Bethany bought one of those fancy arse modern TVs. Mine looks like it could have been from the late 80s, but I can still play dvds on it so why do I need something modern. I don’t watch TV. I only ever watch things online or borrow movies from the library to watch when I want to have a dvd night. It doesn’t bother me. You don’t need to spend where it is not necessary. Where’s your modern TV? It isn’t my business, so what is in my flat isn’t yours. I was talking my friend who is a courier. He said that I should mix with people of my calibre. Like that means anything. I am going to a postgraduate sundowner today. This year I plan to mix more with my peers. It may yield some educated friendships. I find it hard to relate to the layman. I don’t know why. I am not more intelligent necessarily. Just worlds apart from them. I do not find talking about engine blocks, beer and rugby particularly interesting. I find it boring. I can’t relate. I often feel awkward in this sort of social setting. Even though I go to seminars which are involving my presumed peers, I still feel socially isolated. However, this year I am going to make the effort to socialise with “those of my calibre”. Whatever that means. The uneducated call you a “professional student” when you have been studying for ten years. They don’t understand that is your job. Like money, education is a means to end. You do it. Or you don’t. It doesn’t make you better than someone else. You are

just a specialist in your area. Without the specialists, there is no hope for this world. When you have a brain tumour you get a brain surgeon to operate on it, you don’t get a GP to stand up to the specialist task. That is just absurd. It takes those in the medical profession about twelve years to become a specialist and even when you are done studying you have to keep abreast knowledge and ground breaking discoveries. I don’t suppose a medical practitioner gets tarnished with the same brush. “Professional Student!” Ha! I hate the label. Just because you can’t be bothered gaining knowledge or skills, don’t ridicule those who do. I used to know a very erratic woman who suffered a mental illness. She said to me: “Now that you have your honours, I bet you are going on to study even more. When does it all stop?” I thought how ignorant she was. If I can achieve high levels of study, why not? It isn’t any of your business so why do you make it so? People have nothing better to do than project their insecurities on others. I believe if you can do something then do it. Don’t make excuses like “Mr Boring” and sit at home telling people about your menial house duties. I don’t care. No one cares that you washed your socks. You don’t care that I wrote another poem today. It bores you. So don’t bother criticising what you don’t know or can’t fathom. This is why I so desperately need to mix with people of common interests. Thinkers. I think and therefore I am. I haven’t socialised with anyone in about three days. A PhD is socially isolating. I don’t mind, but I am conscious that I have to live in the real world where I have to deal with people which is why I have decided to go to the postgraduate meeting. “Mr Boring” sees his social engagements as appointments. Appointments are obligatory. If you view socialising in the same manner then you don’t see much joy in the world. You have no freedom to be yourself. “Mr Boring” uses excuses to avoid people. That is ok, but don’t complain about being lonely or use social phobia as an excuse. Yoda said in Star Wars: “Do or do not, there is no try”. That is it isn’t it? People think because you are completing a PhD that you are intelligent. Bullshit! I have an average intelligence. I just have the motivation. Then there are those who have Mensa intelligence like Bethany’s mother who can’t even function from day to day and

are content in their rut. I am not content in my rut. I am content being me. Whether or not, I’ll take my own life is still undecided. I haven’t tried to and I haven’t tried not to. Like anything else, if I decide to I will succeed, because that will be what I want to do. I’ll be fucked if I am going to let people rule my life. People will try. I was talking with my psychologist the other week and she said that I was an extraordinary specimen. I mean how? She said: “I’ve never known someone with your problems to be doing their PhD”. I said that I could think of at least one. That was Professor John Nash that people know as the gifted mathematician who made economic breakthroughs. Then she said to me: “Think of one in this state.” I told her that I couldn’t. She said that I was a rarity. There again getting a PhD is a rarity. I only know two others from my undergraduate years that have either got their PhD or are getting their PhD. That was out of a two-hundred and fifty intake. Only half graduated undergraduate. So what? I am a rarity. I don’t care. I am not going to let adversity rule me or ruin my life. I failed my year twelve adult entry six times trying to get into university. I said a special admissions tests and barely scrapped into a place in university, yet somehow as a classic underachiever, I made it somehow to where I am today through effort. No doubt if I sat the Mensa test I’d fail. I can’t see me having the reasoning or logic for IQ tests. Surprisingly, when I went to the scientology IQ test I was told I was below average intelligence. Bullshit! I know that I am average and I am comfortable with that. I don’t need your tests to quantify what I already know. I don’t have any problem with being average. I was not the same as the other two PhD students I knew, both of them were able to go straight from honours to PhD. I had to work through my Masters to get here. I appreciate the candidature of PhD even more because I had to work harder than others to get there. I might be average in a lot of ways, but I’m not your average person. I revel in that. I like my individuality. For once I have a renewed interest in what I am doing. It means something to me. People believe that if you “socially gifted”, “good looking” or “intelligent” you will get more out of life. It is true, if you have these qualities life

is easier but that doesn’t mean that you can’t make the most of it when you aren’t. Most of us are average. I am “retarded socially”, “average looking” with “average intelligence”. I have problems, but the best of us do. Alan Turing was another brilliant mathematician who couldn’t cope socially. He committed suicide in the end when he was persecuted for homosexual acts. At least I live in a world, although far from perfect, where homosexual acts are not met with the same disdain that they were in the 50s. Sometimes I think that those of the most phenomenal characters have been ostracised by society not unlike me. Antonin Artaud was seen as one of the most controversial playwrights of the twentieth century. He suffered a psychiatric illness but went on to do the most amazing things in theatre. He didn’t let it stop him. Turing didn’t let his homosexuality stop him from breaking the enigma code and Nash didn’t let his schizophrenia stop him from making economic breakthroughs. That is that, none of these people were gifted with the “social functioning” that society wished for them. Yet somehow they have made more of an impact on the world than all the “good lookers” and “socially likeable” people. Looks fade and social graces only last for as long as you are alive, but breakthroughs and impacts on society are remembered. That is your legacy. That is your immortality. People read Shakespeare today but hardly anything is known about the man and no one remembers what he looked like, yet his work has endured hundreds of years of criticism. I can’t think of anything worse than dying “pretty” or people being saddened because I was so “likable”. I want to be remembered for my contribution to the world. You can have fame. I want a legacy. The good little breeders of the world can have my grandchildren. You can have my children. I have a cat. I don’t need a child. My maternal instinct or lack thereof is concentrated on my pets. I like animals. I’d much rather save the aging moggy that no one wants then put up with the antics of a kitten or adolescent cat. I like adult cats. Frankly, I don’t need every day human company when I have the appreciation of an animal. They are simple. They don’t demand me to have social graces. They don’t demand me to get some job for the sake of being a good little tax payer. I don’t mind paying tax. This is

my job at the moment and let me get my qualifications and I will get out into the workforce and be a good little tax payer eventually. Sometimes I wish I was a cat. Sometimes I am glad being human. What I do know is, I am who I am. Fuck you, if you don’t accept it. I couldn’t give a brass razoo. I was dancing around the house listening to Dire Straits’ Money for Nothing. I listened to the lyrics intently. The song reminded me of Mike somehow. The words “That ain’t workin’, that’s the way you do it, money for nothin’ and your chicks for free” rolled around in my head. Mike doesn’t work hard for his money, “his money for nothin’” and most certainly doesn’t pay for prostitutes, “so his chicks for free”. He has had plenty of chicks as I have had plenty of lovers. As the song went on, “We gotta install microwave ovens, Custom kitchens deliveries, We’ve got to move these refrigerators, We got to move these colour TVs” and I thought of the consumerism in the world. I thought how everyone can’t do without their IKEA catalogue, microwaves, custom kitchens, refrigerators and colour TVs. If we had a power outage for four days we’d think the apocalypse had come. We are so reliant. I remembered that when I was a child I grew up with a black and white TV. We didn’t have a colour one. We couldn’t afford one until the 90s when the prices for such things dropped. You don’t need a colour TV. In fact, you don’t need a TV at all. We just think we do. That’s modern life though. The only reason I have a cathode-ray TV still is because I was given it because someone was upgrading to something more technological. I don’t need fancy. Next Africa by Toto came on the radio. I listened to this wonderful 80s song which stirred something inside me. I sang: “The wild dogs cry out in night, as they grow restless longing for some solitary company”. I thought about how solitary I’d been for the last three days. I haven’t seen any friends and haven’t socialised and when I got to the postgraduate sundowner, I realised that I was two weeks early. I wasn’t bothered as I had been wanting my own company lately. I am one of Africa’s “wild dogs”. A couple of lines later the words were almost prophetic in nature: “I seek to cure what’s deep inside, frightened of this thing that I’ve become”. If only hope would “cure what’s deep inside”. I will

never know what will. Perhaps there is no cure to the disease of living. Only certain death cures that. Ten O’clock came it was the last song for the evening. Men at Work’s Down Under thundered out of my very little stereo. The first verse: “Travelling in a fried-out Kombi, on a hippy trail, head full of zombie”. I remembered 1980 when my father, mother and I were travelling in the transit van on the way to Adelaide for the National Folk Festival and my parents were stoned out of their minds believing that the police would pull them up any minute. We weren’t quite in a Kombi but we were most certainly on a hippy trail with a head full of zombie, which means in colloquial terms: “a particularly strong dose of Mary Jane, pot” or whatever you want to call the THC substance that my parents were high on. Our hippy trail was the road into the National Folk Festival in Adelaide. I haven’t seen Adelaide since I was four so wouldn’t mind going this year with Mike to see it again. I don’t remember much except that it was Easter and we were camping in the transit van before it crashed in 82’. I was sleeping soundly to sound of traditional music and woke to someone dressed as the Easter bunny who was handing out eggs to the kids. I remember the excitement. I don’t get excited by much anymore. Life just is. But when you are a child, life is full of imagination and possibility. Now I am the adult who wished that they had a “head full of zombie” tonight. Alcohol will have to do. I was talking to my psychologist once again. I was talking about the absence of love in my life and the literal problems I have coming from Father. I mentioned to my psychologist that I did not love my boyfriend, Mike. She asked how long we’d been dating. I said that is was around a year. She explained to me that the feeling of “in love” wore off after about nine months. I explained that wasn’t the case. I said that I have never been “in love” with him. I told her that love doesn’t exist. She explained to me the “love” was a chemical firing off in the brain connected to hormones and stuff. I said “that sounds about right”. I knew it. Love is a hormonal response which slowly wears off. But what if you never had that “raging hormonal response” in the first place? I didn’t with Mike. Sure enough, I wanted him and still want him, but I just don’t feel that “giddy schoolgirl” feeling. I only experienced that when I was a teenager. I like

Mike but there is no love. I can’t help that. That is just the way I am. I like his company and want him around, but that is it. With my father, well, I don’t even like the man. I feel indifferent. He is just someone who has sired me. The biological sperm donor and my mother was the one who happened to spit me out. The only thing I feel toward them is obligation and a sense to do what is “just”. I know you are now thinking that I’m heartless. I am not. I am not going to lie about my feelings as so many of you do. That’s life and I accept it.

***

I was reading facebook today. One of the “facebook friends” was ranting about being a model. She’s not wafer thin. She isn’t particularly beautiful. She is an alternative gothic model and models for alternative magazines. She said: “Fuck your beauty standards”. I liked the comment because I have to agree. Being “good looking” isn’t what makes you worthwhile. You are the way you are. Nothing wrong with that. Like yourself as you are. Your collection of features is inherited so why bother doing anything about it? You can’t help it. Just be yourself. Then there are people like Bethany’s sister who are never happy with themselves and have to take to the knife to change their appearance. A boob job here. A nose job there. Vagina tightening there. I mean seriously, I don’t understand it. Who said that you have to be beautiful? Mike isn’t particularly “good looking” but I like him and he has character. His face is very expressive. I like that about him. He would have made a good actor. But, he is a stock broker and is content doing that, so I leave him be. Anorexia and bulimia are society created disorders. Women starve themselves or throw up their food out of guilt because society puts expectations on them to look a certain way. So instead of saying: “Fuck you society” they have to conform to the norm. Whatever the norm is. Facebook has created its own society of “selfies” and “foodies”. I am not a facebook recluse. But I am not an active member of the community either. I just use it to keep in contact with friends and family. I report on my daily activities. It is laziness though. I don’t want to have to write letters and phone

people to tell others what I have been up to. I just tell facebook. It is kind of like an online journal for me. If people want to know how I am doing they can read the post or not as the case might be. I don’t have to be bothered communicating to those around me on a regular basis. It is a useful tool for that. The continuous “selfies” and “foodies” irritate me. I don’t have to pay attention. I was just playing that song by Bros When will I be famous? I was listening to the lyrics with intent detail. It made me think of Bethany’s sister and facebook. “Yes, you’re suitably the one, with your body in the sun” and I thought how Bethany’s sister loves to tan herself for no particular reason. “You’re a slave to fashion” and I thought how she likes to show off her clothes. “You suffered for your art, with the jogging in the park” and I remember the times she would jog around Kings Park trying to get in shape for her facebook photos. However, I have to ask the question sarcastically through the “obsessed selfies”, “When will I be famous?... When will I see my picture in the paper?” I suppose you think that I am jealous. You got to be kidding me? I don’t want fame. I don’t even want four hundred facebook friends to add to my popularity. But you do. Ask yourself the question: “When will I be famous?” Bros captured it well. Facebook is good for one thing – it put me back in contact with Michel. We are meeting up next week to play a card game or two. But you can take your fame and notoriety. I don’t want it. Whilst Bethany’s sister’s song is: When will I be famous? I thought about a song that encapsulates me. It would have to be Men at Work’s Who could it be now? The song talks about a paranoid man who is in fear of going back to asylum. That is one of my biggest fears and where Artaud died. I don’t want to live like that. Institutionalised. I would rather face the nothingness in the beyond than face that imprisonment again. The first verse explains it quite well: “Who can it be knocking at my door? Go away, don’t come ‘round here no more. Can’t you see that it is late at night? I’m very tired and I’m not feeling right. All I wish is to be alone, Stay away, don’t you invade my home. Best off if you hang outside. Don’t come in, I’ll only run and hide.” This recluse obviously wants to be left alone. I understand that feeling all too well. Then the narrative says: “I’ve done no harm, I keep to myself. There’s nothing wrong with my state

of mental health”. It is true that by now you think there is. Can’t you just see this is the way I am? I don’t need to be labelled by you or anyone else. It seems that I find a lot of commonality in poetry and song lyrics, which are a form of poetry anyway. I am a poet. Artaud was a playwright. I was reading the poem Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robinson, an American poet of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century. Robinson himself was a recluse and solitary man. It seems as though us poets are, just a bit odd and keep to ourselves. Richard Cory speaks of a well off man that was famous and rich. Everyone envied him. The character despite his richness and fame, “...Richard Cory, on calm summer night, went home and put a bullet through his head.” You can have riches and fame but it won’t make you happy unless you are inherently happy in the first place. The characterisation in this poem had everything, but gave it up for the nothingness beyond. It was obviously not enough for him. So why should it be enough for me? You don’t understand the life of a poet so I suggest you stop analysing right now. Stop it.

***

First of all, I didn’t know about Robinson’s poem. I’d hear Simon and Garfunkel’s song Richard Cory, way before I’d encounter the poem. It is a rich intertextual reference. The song was more from the stand point of a worker in Richard Cory’s factory. Simon gave this song zest and modernised the Richard Cory theme. Not present in the poem but emphasised in the song were the words: “And the rumour of his parties and the orgies on his yacht, Oh he surely must be happy with everything he’s got”. Robinson’s poem outlines that Richard Cory was a man of wealth and renown. However Simon and Garfunkel’s Richard Cory was more famous and indulgent. But the same fate awaited both characters. A bullet to the head. I saw the link to this song when I was reading the poem in a writing class in my undergraduate years. I thought perhaps, I’d like to get involved in orgies when I listened to the song and I am no stranger to sharing my boyfriend. However, orgies and the hundred or so lovers I’ve had haven’t made me happy. I am neither happy nor sad. I just am

in a state of now. A state of being. I question existence. I question Richard Cory’s fictionalised existence. Sometimes nothingness is easier than being the outsider. And I am clearly the outsider, the ostracised, the stranger or the freak or weirdo if you like. When I refer to being of “mixed race”, I mean this metaphorically. I am black. I am white. I am indigenous. I am the pansexual intersexed freak that you hate. I am marginalised. I once said to my mother that I wish that I’d been born black for at least I’d have a group that empathised with me. I have no one who empathises and I’m not sure that I empathise with anyone. I am not sure that my life is valuable. I sometimes don’t understand why I should subject myself to your scrutiny any more. I am sick of you. I am sick of my father. When my father dies, much like my mother it will be a relief as there will be no more yo-yo emotions and unfulfilled expectations of a parental figure hanging over my head. I will be alone. In order for children to grow their parents must die first. Only then do you truly know who you are and only then do you fulfil your true potential or not as the case might be. When you are left alone you can really live your life. Now, my father doesn’t like me being bluntly honest about his wife. I said to him that I don’t like her and that I have no time for her childish beliefs. I suppose he is happy with her. Who am I to judge or get in the way of that? But I do not like her in the least and she projects her beliefs on me. I was honest with my father. He didn’t like it. He said I was not tolerant of other’s beliefs and ways. That isn’t true. I am very accepting of difference as evidenced by the variety of friends I have. However, I don’t tolerate the prejudice or narrow minded faith that there is really something out there. I am honest about what I feel. Though, honesty isn’t really respected in our society. “Thou shalt not lie”. What bullshit! You omit everything. You talk behind my back. Well, fuck you. I went to the university seminars this week. Monday was hard on me. I was listening to this professor talk about the poetry he wrote about his dead wife. She died of Cancer. Like mother. I felt disconnected and isolated for a while. I felt nothing. And then it came. Tears, thinking about the pain he’d been through and I wondered why he kept living. His wife was an atheist and there

were no bedside conversions for her. This shows strength of character in my opinion. Why are you any different? Why don’t you accept reality? Then I remembered mother. She was a former shadow of herself. She needed help going to the toilet and couldn’t even hold her head up anymore. Then he started to read his poems. I must have made a scene of myself. I rushed out saying: “Excuse me” and I wailed like a banshee outside the room. The pain crept in. What the fuck was I feeling? This is the first time I’d cried since mother’s death. It wasn’t that I missed her because I don’t. I think it was looking at her so stoned out of her mind on morphine and so dreadfully thin. If she were an animal, I would have had her put down. No one deserves to suffer such pain. Do the Inuit thing and when the time comes that someone is so sick or can’t keep up anymore – put them out on the ice to die. It is much better than a prolonged painful death. It solves a lot of problems. I feel keeping people alive is somehow more barbaric. Tuesday, I attended another seminar about Katherine Susannah Prichard. Another PhD student by the name of Nathan started reading his biography on K.S. Prichard. I thought that it was very well constructed and found his writing tone interesting. It was only last year that I had come to hear of Katherine Susannah Prichard through my boyfriend, Mike. He lives up the road from the old house that now is a writers’ centre and writers’ hub. Then I came to learn something of this woman’s life. I found it intriguing. Then right at the end the phrase from Nathan’s work echoed in my mind: “When Katherine gave a testimony of her conversion to communism sixty years later, the auction stands out as a landmark, an awakening to injustice in the world”. Though I’d be a communist if I could be; the words: “an awakening to injustice in the world” rolled around in my head like a carousel. I realised then that the crying had been “an awaking to ...” the injustice of my mother’s undignified death. You only wanted to keep her alive so that you could say your “goodbyes” which are bullshit. It is all about you and not the person who is suffering. For fuck’s sake let them die in peace with dignity. Don’t press a dying person to be on show for your own amusement.

I went to the postgraduate sun downer this time, and I wasn’t two weeks early. People seemed all consumed in their own conversations. I just interrupted awkwardly to speaking groups and introduced myself. It was an effort. When the conversations became too strained, I watched the peacocks stealing food off the table. I was amused. This was supposed to be a posh occasion with the peacocks stealing food from the tables somehow amused me. They were interested in the free food and were most certainly brash. I told off the most aggressive peacock and he looked at me with an indignant nature as if to say: “What are you looking at punk?” I started having conversations with the peacocks and the grovelling peahens were fed by my hand. I couldn’t help it. These birds are the best opportunists. People looked at me and laughed. I thought: “What are you laughing at? These peacocks are more interesting than you.” I didn’t say it, but I wanted to. As time went on my attention diverted from the peacocks to the people. I started to get absorbed in others’ theses material and thought that these were people were free thinking after all. They didn’t care about my difference. They seemed more interested in my thesis topic. For once, I didn’t feel alone and I was somehow included. Is this what happiness is? I don’t think so. The sensation of being accepted was pleasant. I didn’t feel the staring eyes of society. The made no comment about not wearing a bra or having unshaved legs. That didn’t matter. The mind mattered. For once, people who accepted me on the same level that Mike does. They don’t worry about the exterior but look to the interior for interest. But then I thought that if they really knew me that they would be turned off. And they probably would. Because the truth is I am an outcast. After the sun downer I felt compelled to write as my mind was buzzing with ideas. I tried to write but couldn’t. No idea would come out. I strained. I smoked a stream of cigarettes. I thought about the poetry at the seminars and ideas ran wild in my head. Then I started reading the poetry anthology I had picked up from Monday’s seminar. Christopher Konrad’s poem in Amber Contains the Sun, called Camus captured my attention. The first line echoed in my mind: “Here I stand – the accused”. Am I the accused? Are you accusing me? The last two lines of the final stanza explained it all: “How to justify oneself

when – arguably one is not – merciless judge that I am”. Then I thought of Camus’ work, L’Etranger once again. “Here I stand – the accused”. I am Meursault, I am the accused. Then I thought of mother. The words flowed.

Life’s cruel pattern

Death fell on a silent horizon My tears shattered the mirrors It broke into tiny pieces in silence Another shock and the world stopped

My mother’s lifeline barely there Her lifeline but a string of thread Blowing in the wind of cruelty Noise abounds but there is only silence.

My first poem about my mother’s cancer and death. It is strange to see it there on paper. It is strange to think that I could actually write about that. “Noise abounds but there is only silence” may have been influenced by Simon and Garfunkel’s Sounds of Silence. Somehow it feels true to nature. Sometimes you have the silence of your own mind. There never is truly silence. The only time you will experience silence is when you die. That is true silence. That is true nothingness. I suppose you scrutinise my poem and think that I actually care what you think. I write because I have to not because you want me to. I am not your dancing pony so stop trying to get me to dance to your tune. I received a text message from a friend. She is having trouble in paradise so to speak. Her and her boyfriend may break up. I have offered her my couch while she saves up for a bond and said that I could make enquiries as to a flat in my complex as people seem to be moving out all the time. I’ve had the break up and nowhere to go. It is better that she has a safe haven. Why am I doing this? Because she has been more of a friend to me than my current arrangement with Bethany. Bethany can’t really be bothered putting the effort in. I asked her if she wanted to come visit me this weekend and she said that it was too much like hard work. Whatever. I don’t really care. I am

appreciating the space from Bethany anyway. I don’t want to particularly take on my friend as I love living alone but I would offer it short term as I wish someone had done for me when my defacto relationship had fallen apart. I hope that she doesn’t need my couch. I am hoping that she’ll patch it up with her boyfriend. She isn’t my responsibility but there is nothing wrong with helping another human being if they are in need. I was in the middle of writing when my friend’s text came through. Now I have lost the muse. It happens in bursts. I can’t control when I write. Sometimes I just need to write because I need to. It would not be worth living if I didn’t write. Mike came around the other day and I got drunk again. We screwed like champions. He was very talkative about his business and I wasn’t feeling well. Then after dinner I felt much better. We were talking about religion again. Neither of us understands how you can place your faith in an invisible being upstairs. I don’t even know how you can place faith in your own father on this earth let alone fictitious ones in the sky. I am supposed to be my father’s daughter, but our values and attitudes are so vastly different. I don’t like authority. I am not exactly an anarchist but I can relate to that at times. What is faith in your father or invisible God but delusion? I was talking to Bethany’s friend the paedophile again today. He is religious. He said that he thought that the world had gone to shit. I asked him what he meant. He seemed to think that women shouldn’t we walking around with six pack abs and tattoos on their bodies and that they should be home and looking after their children. I became annoyed at this old fashioned point of view. I said to him that I’d never wanted children and that I didn’t believe in gender roles. He said that women and men were different and that women had their place. I told him that wasn’t the case with me. I won’t be put in my place. I don’t believe in male and female roles. I believe in the choice of the individual. Why should I be a homemaker because society told me so? Fuck off, you can have your menial domestic duties and be a good breeder for the ever growing overpopulation, but that doesn’t tickle my fancy. He said that women are ever increasingly becoming macho. I have heard this from males before, usually of religious persuasions. Funnily enough,

Mike sometimes has such opinions that irritate me. He seems to think that a woman wants to find a man with a lot of money so that she can be cared for. That isn’t me. I told Mike this. He said that was true enough and perhaps he shouldn’t generalise. However, nothing would shut up the paedophile and get him off his soap box. I dislike intensely a man saying that he knows what a woman wants when he hasn’t listened to the opinions of enough women. I listen to the opinions of men and understand their point of view, or at least strive to. I’m not denying that there are those women out there that marry for money, but I am not one of them. I can earn my own money. Today is Sunday, it is that religious day that I take no interest in. I don’t understand how Christians can turn up to their church to devote themselves to an invisible parent. I was listening to Simon and Garfunkel’s Blessed and immediately thought of the lyrics. “Blessed are the stained glass, window pane glass, Blessed is the church service makes me nervous”. I thought about it. I don’t like church services. My mother was not religious. But my Grandmother was. Whenever, I’d see her I’d have to go to church and didn’t like it in the slightest. I thought then at the age of eight this is boring and of no good use to anybody, yet religiously my Grandmother would go. I’d have to agree with Simon and Garfunkel’s song: “Blessed are the meth drinkers, pot sellers and illusion dwellers”. At least there is something other worldly about getting off your head so to speak. I think if I remember correctly religion made Meursault nervous. Meursault says in chapter five: “For the third time, I refused to see the chaplain. I’ve got nothing to say to him, I don’t feel like talking and I’ll be seeing him soon enough as it is”. That was it, there was a priest at my mother’s death and he was there grabbing my hand and reciting a prayer. I didn’t like it. I pulled my hand from his and excused myself. I don’t understand how my father could allow him to recite the prayer when he’d never shown any signs of religious intention throughout my lifetime. I suppose conventionally speaking it is the thing to do. I see it as sick to persuade people into believing they go somewhere when obviously the inevitable is death. There are no fat little cherubs playing harps on a silver lining of a cloud. How stupid must you be?

Yesterday, Jehovah’s Witnesses knocked on my door. They seemed nice enough, so I let them in for a coffee. They asked me if I believed in God. I said that I didn’t. The conversation became uncomfortable. I decided to tell them that I wasn’t interested and that they could go now. They asked why I’d let them in. I said because they seemed nice enough. It was ignorant of me to think that we could have a discussion about religion in an informed way. I wanted to tell them that there was nothing after death and when you die that is it. They wouldn’t have listened anyhow. They are brainwashed in their little cult. My ex defacto’s brother was a Jehovah’s Witness and he didn’t give the time of day to me. He didn’t like me. I’d say hello and he’d say nothing. He’d just ignore me as if I was not there. I remember that my defacto pulled me aside and said, “my brother and I want to watch the wrestling can you bugger off and do something else, he’d like to spend some quality time with me”. I thought “you don’t like me, so you just wish I’d go away”. I told him “No” and watched the wrestling with them just to get back at his rude brother. That didn’t go down very well. So what? If you have a problem with me, at least be honest about it and tolerate me as I have to tolerate you. I think that there is nothing wrong with being civil to someone you don’t like if you happen to be in the same space as them. I don’t know why my defacto would drag me down to his parents when the whole family loathed me. What a waste of fucking time. Then one day I was minding my own business and the Mormons came to my flat. They were two American guys wanting to convert their twisted ideas about religion on me. I said to them that I knew they were Mormons and that I didn’t believe in God. They asked me why. I told them that there was no evidence to support it. They said that the Book of Mormon was evidence. I told them that their prophet Joseph Smith was in fact a snake oil salesman and con man. They didn’t like that very much. I also told them that I didn’t believe that a woman would need to be “sealed” to a man and be a good little breeder to go to heaven. I told them that was ludicrous. I asked them whether I’d have to be a good little breeder for the Church. And they said that a woman is meant to have children. I told them that I’d never been pregnant and had my tubes tied so I’d not be much use to their church churning out little babies for their

cause. They didn’t like that at all. I told them that I wasn’t interested and shut the door in their face. Woman being “sealed” to a man in order to go to heaven. What balderdash! Then I remembered that when I was doing night school before university, that one Mormon lady took me to her temple to have a look. She said, “I am sealed to my husband and am guaranteed a place in heaven”. I thought how ignorant. What about all the unmarried women out there? Are they all going to hell? Then she said to me: “The temple is lovely isn’t it?” I told her that I thought it was tacky. She didn’t like that. That is the sort of thing that my father doesn’t like me saying. He thinks I shouldn’t speak my mind about religion and that I am not respecting others beliefs. I don’t say, “I am an atheist, look how pretty my temple is, and you must convert!” Believe whatever you want, but keep your mouth shut, if you don’t want me to disagree with you. Mike was telling me how he has some Mormon friends that are lax Mormons. He says they drink coffee, booze and live with their girlfriends, but if you ask them if they believe in God they say: “Of course”. How can you stray from your belief system and still believe in the invisible parent upstairs? I can’t fathom that. I was on campus and heard a Muslim talking about his faith. The man he was talking to said: “What about pantheism?” The Muslim didn’t know what he was talking about even though he was highly educated. I interjected and said to the Muslim: “It is a doctrine which identifies God with the universe and sees it as a manifestation of god or the worship or tolerance of many gods. ‘Pan’ coming from the ancient Greek meaning ‘all’ or ‘every’.” The Muslim male thanked me for the explanation. I said to the Muslim that I was a pansexual which meant something very similar in sexuality. The Muslim man started to discuss religion with me after the other man had left for his class. I told him that I was an atheist and didn’t believe in Allah. He asked me why and I said that I found no evidence for such. He seemed surprised at my response. I asked him what he thought of the terrorism going on the world and he said that he didn’t agree with it. I said I didn’t either. I said that terrorism is not a sign of a “true Muslim”. He agreed. I said those that use terror whether they do in the name of “Allah” or “Jesus Christ” shouldn’t deserve to live. Evoking fear in

people because they don’t believe in the same thing as you is not on as far as I am concerned. I have to think, if there were no religion then would the terrorism stop? I don’t think so. They’d just find another excuse to start war. The Muslim man seemed less accusing of me than I get from the Christians perhaps because he is a minority in this country and would have to be more tolerant and free thinking to live here. I don’t know the answer. Yet you would scold him for believing in Allah, I don’t. But I don’t agree with his opinions either. Muslims just don’t try and ram stuff down my throat. Perhaps it would be different if I were living in Saudi Arabia but thank goodness I am not. I was listening to Tool’s Eulogy before. I like the song. It is about Scientology apparently. The lyrics are simplistic. We all know that the Science Fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard’s invention was this religion. I don’t know how anyone can believe in these new cults. But people search for meaning. According to the Scientologists we have lived many lives. I don’t see that. You only have one life and when you die that is it. There is no soul, no transient being. You live. You die. And nothingness. L. Ron Hubbard was obviously a con man like Joseph Smith of the Mormons. I listened to the lyrics of Eulogy and didn’t see how it related to Scientology at all. I don’t think much more of it than just an enjoyable song. About Scientology? Like that means anything. I dismiss the song’s link to the religion. The song reminded me more of Christianity, ah but it doesn’t matter in the scheme of things. Nigel Cawthorne in The World’s Greatest Cults says that “The Church of Scientology claims to have eight million members worldwide, which makes it by far the largest of all the non-Christian cults. It is also one of the most wealthiest, most secretive and litigious.” I know little about Scientology other than they don’t believe in using psychiatric drugs on those who are mentally ill. I think if any religion or cult can claim to have the secrets to well-being for the mentally ill- this is dangerous. I was talking to a woman on the bus who was Christian and she was mentally ill and claimed that faith healing had fixed her but I could tell that she was still not quite right. I once had an intelligence test with the Church of Scientology and I am suppose to have a below average IQ, yet I am doing a PhD. Go figure. At a separate time in my twenties, I applied for a job and it was

at the Church of Scientology as a receptionist. You get paid according to donations (so your weekly pay packet would vary) and if you left before serving two years at the Church of Scientology they said that you were liable to pay back all your wages. No wonder the place makes so much money. I can’t figure why Tom Cruise and John Trevolta have anything to do with the religion. The crazy lunatic, L. Ron. Hubbard, was on to something of a gold mine in this religion. I read the news today and funding for security guards is being put in place for schools that are considered vulnerable to racial or religious attacks. It is not surprising that Islamic schools in poorer areas seem to have got the funding. I understand and agree with the need for this but it will not stop intra- sectarian violence that occurs within the religion. I think they are thinking that the violence will be non Muslims attacking their schools because of Muslim hatred. It is true that even my uneducated friends do not like Muslims and find the thought of girls wearing hijab appalling. Since when has it become your business? It is like me not wearing a bra, I get comments about it. I say mind your own fucking business. Allow people the right to their own ways. Personally I feel a world without religion would be better, but how do I know? I can’t stop it. It is very prominent in our society. So I have to live with it. So do you. So learn to tolerate others. Jewish schools are also receiving that same funding as anti-Semitism is still rife. Haven’t we learnt that from World War II religion should be tolerated at least? Even though personally I don’t agree with religion, I defend the right of people to have whatever faith they have in peace, just don’t ram it down my throat. When the war in Iraq was going on, I went around wearing hijab just to find out what Muslim women go through. They get spat on. Cursed and I got this most rude American putting out his Australian flag saying, I ought to be shot. Next time you criticise somebody, step into their shoes. Kick me. Kike me you don’t even like me. I’ve said this before. Also on the news, there were plans to shut down Aboriginal communities because they are not viable. My blood boiled over this. I thought about the Mabo debate back in 1988. Then I thought of Youthu Yindi’s song Treaty and what the music stood for. “Well I heard it on the radio, And I saw it

on the television, Back in 1988, All those talking politicians, Words are easy, words are cheap, Much cheaper than our priceless land, But promises can disappear, Just like writing in the sand”. The aboriginals were given the wrong end of the stick. “Promises can disappear” alright. Mabo was a humble gardener at James Cook University and when he read the lectures of anthropologists on his own people he was disgusted. As useless as Kevin Rudd was as prime minister at least he apologised to the aboriginal people. Something that John Howard refused to do. He apologised for the “stolen generation”, and all those children that were still being taken from their native families until the 1970s. Then I thought of the Wounded Knee Massacre where over 300 Sioux men, women and children were violently killed in 1890. One of my friend’s said that “Fucking Abos all they do is drink and bum smokes”. I said to this person: “Who paid the aboriginal with smokes and alcohol? White man.” I thought about Buffy Saint Marie’s songs. I was thinking of Universal Soldier and how it spoke of everyone fighting, atheist, Jew, or Christian. Buffy Saint Marie, although native American was somebody who fought for the rights of all through her songs. The Native Americans and Australian aboriginals have a very similar history and still fight for the rights today. How on earth can you take away the dignity of a people and expect them to fit your little box? To be successful in your world? You can’t. The Maoris on the other hand were treated more fairly than the Australian aboriginal and Native American. When Maoris encountered the Western Society they put up a fight and because of this fight a ground breaking peace treaty was signed known as the Treaty of Waitangi which was done in the 1840s. Later fights ensued in the 1860s until finally peace between the Maoris and white settlers was made. Maoris adopted white culture and the white culture adopted the Maori ways. Both the languages English and Maori are taught at school and New Zealand has adopted the mixed culture. In Canada the natives, known as the Inuit and Metis were encouraged by the white settlers to assimilate into their own cultures, which was leaps and bounds ahead of the Australian Aboriginal. In the twentieth century, the natives were “stolen” from their homes and placed in Christian school, quite similar to that

of the Australian Aboriginals. They were forced to integrate and according to the United Nations bill of rights again genocide many saw this as a form of it against the aboriginal peoples of Canada. Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued an apology to the Inuit and Metis people in 2008. Interestingly so, Kevin Rudd issued an apology to our aboriginal people not long after that. There would have been an outcry if the Inuit or Metis people had stolen white children and bought them up in their traditional ways. What gives us the right to overrun people? To take away their culture? Their connection to the land and force your way of life on them? Often, I am ashamed to be white and of English stock because what they have done to the various indigenous cultures throughout history. I don’t support the government’s actions. And the poor African Americans suffer too. It just isn’t right. That seems to be the way with the big daddy religions, they want to convert everyone to their way of thinking. Where do they get off doing that? If people were left to their own devices or amicable peace treaties like New Zealand’s then there would be a lot more peace in the world. I thought about Youthu Yindi’s Treaty again. “Words are cheap”. The tool’s song came to mind Eulogy, this song was getting under my skin. It was causing me to think in a way that I hadn’t. “Not all martyrs see divinity, but at least you tried”. Perhaps I am being a martyr for the marginalised. On second thoughts I don’t think so. I see now why the song is about Scientology, it says, “Don’t you fucking lie” and of course being a science fiction writer that made L. Ron Hubbard the greatest liar of all. I am mixed race but you just see whiteness in my skin and assume what I am. You don’t know anything. Of course it is metaphorical. But you don’t get that. You don’t understand and I don’t expect you to. I may as well be every minority. I am hated by you and you can’t stand me fighting for my rights. Well fuck you! I am most certainly Meursault. Are you going crucify me? You might as well by the way you reject me. I don’t care what you think. Believe what you want. I am not a sociopath. You don’t know me. Why should I care about what you think? Why should I follow your religion? Why shouldn’t I fight your narrow minded ways? I believe in a more equitable world than you do. Stop judging me. If you think that your Christian values are going to do me

good then you are deluded. I am not. To dust I return. I return to the nothingness, the black hole, the abyss. I was thinking of the aboriginal communities again today. I thought about the song Beds are Burning and how Peter Garrett said, “The time has come, to say fair’s fair, to pay the rent, to pay our share, the time has come, a fact’s a fact, it belongs to them, let’s give it back”. In this song he is talking about land rights. Something needs to be done to integrate with each other. There would be less violence and less hatred between races. We all bleed the same colour. We all have skin. My friend said that the aboriginal is dumb and has the intelligence of Neanderthal man and that they are not as intelligent as us. I don’t believe this for one moment. The problem is education. The aboriginal populace is uneducated. But look at Mabo when he got knowledge and he was a mere gardener. Give them the opportunity to know more about themselves. Then I thought of the first LP I got. It was Warragal by John Williamson. I remembered the song Dingo. Although I no longer have the album, I started to singing the words as I was making breakfast. “Dingo, Dingo, - koori warragal, Dingo, Dingo, - koori warragal, Guard dog of the plains, keeping the sheep from eatin’ it all away.” Koori Warragal, means dog of the Koori which are the New South Wales tribe. Then my mind thought of another song that saddened me. The Drover’s Boy. Ted Egan wrote another wonderful song called The Drover’s Boy, “And he told the massacre in the west, barest details, guess the rest, shoot the bucks, grab a gin, cut her, break in, call her a boy, the drover’s boy”. It is sad to think that this was happening in the nineteenth century where they’d actually steal aboriginal women after a massacre and use her as a sex slave to drovers but they did. White man has a lot to answer for. I kept thinking how not many people think of environmentalism in this country. They think it is ok to rape and pillage the aboriginal people. They think that it is ok to rape and pillage the land. I heard one aboriginal say: “This is my land and my land is angry with you” and she had reason to say this, with all our mining, and litter we are producing. Then I thought again about John Williamson and his song Rip, Rip Woodchip. “Rip, rip woodchip – turn into

paper, throw it in the bin, don’t understand, nightmare, dreaming – can’t you hear the screaming, stirs my blood going to make a stand”. We are still chopping down old growth forests and this infuriates me. To think that trees are an ongoing resource. Well they are if you farm them. That’s what we should be doing but people are too impatient. They want it now. They don’t care about tomorrow’s consequences. Do you care of tomorrow’s consequences? I don’t think so. Do you deserve to keep living with that attitude? I don’t think so. Oh, yes but I forget I am the sociopath to your mind. Stop judging me and open up your eyes. I thought about the character Caliban from Shakespeare’s The Tempest and realised that the character represented the indigenous of the Island that Prospero was conquering. Caliban was enslaved by Prospero which was a common action of dominating nations to enslave native inhabitants of lands they claimed. I thought how Prospero was nasty to Caliban and used all manner of force to keep him enslaved. Caliban ended up resenting Prospero which was not at all surprising and it is strange to think that domineering races didn’t understand that the natives of any country would not give up their land willingly. So why does it come as any surprise to us today that the Australian Aboriginal resents white man? One can almost understand the anger and torment these people must be feeling but we have to work on building more amicable relationships between the races like was established in New Zealand. You seem surprised that I take the aborigines’ side. Well, you ostracise me and you ostracise the aboriginal so we have something in common. Only the truly ignorant open their mouths. There you go with your judgement of me again. I have news for you, I will fight for the underdog, so to speak because they need a voice. I am black, I am white, I am indigenous, I am all that you hate you racist piece of shit.

***

I went to the seminar at university today, it was on eighteenth century electricity and the use of it in sexuality and literature. Basically, the premise of

the paper was about how people who had just discovered electricity found that it was useful as a tool in the bedroom to promote sexual prowess. Though it would all seem like quackery in the modern world, they were genuinely convinced of electricity’s uses in such a way. They probably never thought that we’d be burning coal to fuel massive power plants around the world two hundred years from then. As good as electricity is and as interesting as this paper was, something needs to be done to conserve this resource and find alternative ways of making it. I shudder to think that John Howard when he was prime minister and probably the current government want exemptions from green house gas omissions. The truth of the matter is that we cannot bury our head in the sand and hope that the problem will go away. We have rising water levels yet there are people out there that believe that greenhouse effect is just gibberish made up to scare people. People didn’t realise the effect that their 80s hair sprays were having on the ozone layer, but something was done about that, thankfully. We cannot go on denying what is clearly happening around us. I know you are in denial but I am not. Bethany was supposed to come around today and I rang her at three after the seminar. She said that she’d just woken up. I can’t believe that. How can you sleep in to three in the afternoon? I don’t understand that. I go to bed as soon as I am tired and up by eight in the morning at the latest. I asked Bethany if she was still coming and she said she couldn’t be bothered. I thought, “Oh, well, at least I can write some poetry now”. That doesn’t mean that I was not irritated by the broken off arrangement. I am very particular. I time manage, in much the same way I budget well. I am good at organisation. Nothing around my house goes without being done, including the dishes for any more than a day. I just don’t have it in me to be lazy. There should be something written about: “How not to be lazy”. That’s as I see her. Lazy. Sometimes it annoys me and her disorganisation most certainly irritates. She has the attention span of a squirrel and the motivation of a sloth. It isn’t very encouraging. I find socialising with other postgraduates motivating, to say the least which is why I am making an effort to attend the seminars so much this year. I like being in company of cerebral people. I like to think. I like to be made

to think. Life is so dull without using your brain. I suppose you obsess about rugby or some other form of football. Not to mention your love for cars. That is about as interesting as a fart in a spacesuit to me. I went to see my friend who was having problems with her boyfriend. It would seem that she has sorted things out with him thankfully. So no need for her to spend time on my couch and look for a new flat. I am glad about that. She seemed quite happy today. I shouted her lunch. We had a good chat about things. Relationships are made difficult when you live with the other party. It isn’t easy to play wife to a man in this day and age. I was talking to another friend and she said that she spends eighty hours working her own business, plus cooking, cleaning and looking after children. I asked her what her husband does. She said that he works ten hours a week and expects her to pick up the rest. I said that wasn’t fair. I said that she should think about leaving him. A relationship is about equal effort. She said she couldn’t kick the dog when it was down and I told her that one should only have so much tolerance for unfair treatment. Oh, well it is her life, I made my suggestion and if she wants to keep being a slave that is her choice. You wouldn’t catch me being anyone’s slave. I don’t believe in slavery. I watched some very good films about indigenous issues the other day. Rolf De Heer’s The Tracker was set in 1922 where a band of men and an aboriginal tracker pursue an aboriginal fugitive who has murdered a white woman. I thought that the movie was a stunning piece of visual poetry employing art work juxtapositioned with the story line to tell the tale of racial intolerance. The fanatic shot aboriginal people and shackled the very tracker that was helping him find the fugitive. I thought it was an interesting sign when the other two white men shackled the tracker and said “Sorry” yet The Fanatic said nothing. I think that was alluding to white man saying sorry to the aboriginal people yet some would not, which is represented in The Fanatic character. Then there was another one of De Heer’s work Ten Canoes told the myths of the aboriginal people from the Northern Territory. The narrator told the story of his land and how a hero of a tribe finally died after encountering a stranger. It was reflective of aboriginal culture and mythology and showed the

amazing connection that the aboriginal tribe had with the land and themselves. Ten Canoes was more about exposing the aboriginal culture and mythology rather than the struggle between black and white. I liked it for this. Then there is Phillip Noyce’s Rabbit-Proof Fence where three half aboriginal girls are stolen from their home in the bush and taken to a Christian half way house and trained to be domestic staff for white man. The girls, part of the stolen generation escape from the place and make their way back to their homeland. The leader in charge of the “stolen generation” at the time claimed that he wanted to breed the aboriginal out of these people. It is disgusting that they had these sorts of attitudes towards the indigenous. However, the girls fought their way back to their native land they called home. Such adversity made these girls stronger. Not to mention that Ivan Sen’s Beneath Clouds got me thinking even further, about aboriginal issues. Beneath Clouds is about a girl who appears to be white, but is actually mixed race. She struggles with her aboriginality and meets a young boy called Vaughn who escapes from a minimum security prison meets up with the girl Lena. Lena runs away from her aboriginality and Vaughn embraces it. A great deal of symbolism is used in this film, including dead animals to represent progress, old churches to demonstrate the death of religion, teenage pregnancy and a whole other heap of aboriginal issues. This film is a thinker’s film. A dead moth filmed being eaten by ants represents something is eating at Lena’s soul, for the symbol for the soul in ancient Greek mythology is a moth. The two characters travel down a road – which represents progress and dead animals that both indigenous and introduced symbolise to me the death of introduced culture and indigenous culture to progress. I think that that Lena wearing her hair in two plates is representative of the divided cultures she comes between, one being white and the other being black. At a certain point in the movie Lena puts her hair up into a pony tail a representation that she is no longer divided. It is alluded to that the reason that she is running away is because she is pregnant, but this is like an Easter egg in my opinion and if you do not pay attention you’d miss the point Sen is trying to make. The average viewer if not familiar with symbolism and aboriginal history would not make these

connections. Another observation is that the movie is called Beneath Clouds, which means that wherever you are on this planet you are always ”beneath clouds”. I know that you probably wouldn’t like these movies – they make you think too much. Well, I like them and that is what counts. I haven’t really heard from my father in a while and that is no surprise as doesn’t show the slightest interest in my PhD or life. He thinks that if I contact him once a week that is too much, but I suppose that I can’t expect him to love me or be interested. He doesn’t have to be. It would be nice to have the approval of my father but I doubt that it is something I’d ever gain. He is too busy criticising my actions rather than commending my achievements. I was happy that he married that woman. But I don’t like her and don’t have to like her. She never really did understand me and didn’t like it when I had trouble in my life and my father would divert his attentions toward me. Now it is the opposite, he is diverting his attentions toward her and ignoring me. Can’t there be a middle ground? Can’t he show interest in his daughter without neglecting his wife? I don’t understand her way of thinking, beliefs in past lives and all that sort of palaver. You live. You die. Why do so many people believe there is something else? I don’t understand that. That is why the human race procreates, so that the species will keep living on long after you are dead. I don’t want a baby. I couldn’t think of myself as a mother, perhaps I have disappointed my father in this way. He is never going to be a grandparent. He probably is upset that his name and bloodline will die with me. I don’t know. I don’t attempt to understand. It doesn’t matter, he isn’t living my life for me. Whether or not I have children isn’t his business. So I don’t discuss it with him anymore. I told him once that he was never going to be a grandfather. He seemed indignant and slightly irritated by the prospect. That isn’t my problem. That is his problem. I don’t particularly care what he thinks. And I don’t care what you think either. Bethany is at work today apparently. She didn’t come around the other day because she slept in but that is ok because I got some more poetry written. She wants to see me tomorrow and I said that I would meet her at the Karaoke bar with an acquaintance Black Death. Black Death isn’t his real name that is

his assumed gothic identity. He is an interesting fellow and we had once had a one night stand together after he split with a very crazy girl friend of his. He wanted me to be in a relationship with him, but I explained I couldn’t as I was going to Brisbane to look after my mother. He seemed upset by that. He thought I was rejecting him. I was in a polite way. Although, I like the bloke, we aren’t relationship material and I recognise that more than anyone else. Black Death is a self proclaimed Satanist. He says that he practises the black arts but I don’t know how much of this is hype or reality, but I let him think he is powerful in the magical realm by simply saying nothing when he talks about his Satanism. You are probably wondering how I can be friends with a Satanist. Well, that is because he is more like an atheist and doesn’t shove it down my throat. He doesn’t harm animals and loves them with a passion. At heart he is a real big softy. And very emotional. He has a girlfriend now. I am pleased for him but we still hang out at Karaoke together and have some amazing times. The place that we frequent will be closing down soon. It is unfortunate and we will have to find another regular haunt. There used to be a gothic club here that we both used to frequent but that also shut down. To all good things comes an end. Just like life. Nothing is forever. Bethany is turning up tomorrow and I suppose I will need to endure her company, but at least there will be other friends there and if she wants to go cry in a corner because she is not the centre of attention she can. I really don’t have any time or pity for Bethany’s self imposed crap. Either do something about your situation or shut up. Don’t wallow in self pity as James and Bethany have done. I have no time for it or sympathy. I have better things to do with my time. The first time I met Amelie, was when I went to Black Death’s house for a coffee with another who has since been pushed away, because like the lady from the threesome I was “dry and academic like” and he couldn’t stand this. Though admittedly he has comprehension problems and admitted that someone who was educated threatens him. That isn’t my problem. Obviously he is insecure. Most of the people I know are in some form racist. They don’t like the Arabs and they don’t like the aboriginal. We were sitting having a coffee and the three of them started telling racist jokes. Black Death said: “What do

you call a bunch of aboriginals rolling down a hill?” People paused. Then he burst out laughing saying: “An abo-lanche”. They laughed. I sat quiet. I said that wasn’t funny. They told me to stop being a spoil sport. I said that I didn’t endorse jokes that made fun of a certain group. I became the outsider in the group, yet they still accepted me for my point of view. Amelie was laughing which surprised me as she is a lesbian. I wouldn’t have thought that one minority would have ever bad mouthed another minority. Bethany was there. She said nothing. I put up a fight against the jokes. I asked Bethany later if she found the jokes funny and she said “No”. Bethany is half Jew. It is not at all surprising that she isn’t racist. So many are. I can’t believe how many are. I’d have to say that the only non-racist people I know are Mike, Bethany and the transgender. How can you have such a derogatory opinion about another human-being? That’s right. You have one about me. The sociopath. I’ve heard you say it. I was once accused of being racist, I was sitting at a bus stop and a drunken aboriginal was abusing me saying that I took away her land. I thought to myself: “You ignorant woman, you don’t know anything about me – I am not a first fleeter”. She called me a “white cunt”. I didn’t agree with her or disagree with her. I didn’t give her the time of day. Not because she was a black fella but because she was being racist toward me. Her cousin was trying to hold her back from saying all this. He was quietly telling her to calm down. Then the police arrived and asked what was going on. The officer looked at people at the bus stop and said: “Would anyone like to tell us what is going on?” The other white people sat silent and said nothing. I told the officer what had happened and that I didn’t appreciate being slandered. They took her away for drunken disorderly. Yet interestingly, the quiet cousin who was trying to hold her back started on me calling “a disgusting white piece of shit” for ratting on her. I said to him: “Yes your people have been treated unfairly, but that gives you no right to be racist toward me, when I have never been that way toward you. You don’t know me. So don’t judge me. And leave me alone!” He continued swearing obscenities at me. I ignored him. Then I got on my bus and that was the end of it. Yes, I am white but that doesn’t mean I have a problem

if you are not. However, if you are a black fella do you have a problem with me being white? Do I intimidate you? Why should you be racist toward me? I am not toward you and I am not your superior. I clearly need to get some more educated friends. I need to attend some more postgraduate social occasions I think. I am going to put this on my agenda in coming months. I clearly need to mix with intelligent people who think about the world instead of taking it for granted. You take it for granted. I know that you do, but that isn’t me. I went to the “Flesh and Fetish Ball” with that guy that said I was “too dry and academic like”. This is when we were friends. He fancied me. I kind of liked him but the more I got to know him the more I realised that it wasn’t going to work because of the separation in our education. I saw someone who I had not seen in a long time. She was dressed up to the hilt. I liked what she was wearing and said: “I love your costume.” She became indignant as Goths do. “This isn’t a costume – I dress like this”. I thought: “Whatever”. This girl works for social services – I bet that she doesn’t turn up in fancy dress for that. They would have to tolerate a corset wearing lady in a too too. I admired the dress but how pretentious to say that is you every day dress. We all go out and dress up for the occasion and there is nothing wrong with that. Just because someone admires what you are wearing doesn’t mean that you have to be pretentious about it. This is way before I met Mike. Mike dresses in ordinary polo shirts and daggy shorts. I still find him attractive. And for someone to ask if he’d ever been successful because he has an old car is ridiculous. Money is a means to an end and if you use it to flaunt off your costumes or cars, then you are an idiot. Don’t expect me to keep up with the Jones’ or better still fall into your material world. That reminds me of Madonna’s Material Girl, “If they don’t give me proper credit, I just walk away”, “Cause the boy with cold hard cash, is always Mr Right”, and “only boys who save their pennies, make my rainy day”. We are living a material world as the song states. So of course, the girls go for the guys with money not because they are actually interested in their minds but because they are interested in the cash, I really can’t believe that. I should have asked that Goth how much her partner makes to support her fancy dress habits. I am not a material girl.

I thought that perhaps that I should sing Material Girl at Karaoke tonight. I might get across a point. The non material girl singing Material Girl, now that is irony. It is my sarcastic stab at society. I do a lot of those. Even the aboriginals are caught up in materialism but they don’t realise it. They give in to a life of indulgence drinking their life away. That isn’t all aboriginals of course but a lot do have a drinking problem. Many have problems with domestic violence as well, but these things go unsaid. I don’t understand why their own people are not trying to stop this treatment towards themselves. I can’t fathom that and it is not my place to interfere as a white person. If the aboriginals are going to make a difference, it is they that have to make the difference in their own society. There are those out there that are and that aboriginal group that does the plays, is one pure example of that. I don’t know how many times I have seen aboriginals working at the tax office or for social services. It is good to see. They can make a difference and as a poet I am sympathetic to minorities. I can make a difference too. I plan to. I am not going to sit by and see these injustices in the world. Call me an activist. But you think I am a sociopath that is right. Believe what you want. You don’t know me as I have told you before. I have been out for the best part of the day and don’t feel like going to Karaoke tonight. I am going to stay home and write poetry. I was talking to Mike and he said that when I am finished my PhD that we should go live in Greece. He said I could write and he could run his business remotely. I must admit that the idea does sound nice. I don’t know yet. I’ll have to think about it. We discussed our holiday today and we are going to back to Bali instead of Adelaide. We have decided that we are going to Sanur instead of Kuta this time. Kuta reminded me of Bangkok. It was dirty and very busy. Night clubs ran all night, which was annoying when you are trying to sleep. We have read reviews on Sanur and it is the place recommended for over forties. Mike is well and truly over and forty and I am close to it. I think I will enjoy a more laid back holiday and this time we plan to go to the monkey forest. It would be good to see all the tame monkeys. I have never seen a monkey, except in the zoo and seeing one in its natural habitat would be really something. I remember my

mother saying that she had a pet monkey which used to bite people. She talked of the antics it would get up to. I remember the stories she used to tell me about it. I couldn’t even think about having a monkey in Australia. That would be an exotic pet. I don’t agree with the exotic pet trade anyway as these animals are usually pulled away from their natural habitats for circuses and pets. I couldn’t think of something worse to do to an animal. I believe that animals in their natural habitat is a much nicer thought than an exotic pet for the hell of it. It is better that we leave native animals in their native environment. Bethany was supposed to come around again and didn’t ring to say she wasn’t coming. I finally got hold of her. I told her that she was the most unreliable person I know. She didn’t like that. She said that I was putting her down. I said that I was stating a fact. The fact is that she is unreliable. She expects platitudes. I won’t give them to her and she often fishes for compliments. She once said to me that she was stupid. I told her for a time that she wasn’t. Then I got sick of empty compliments. I told her eventually, that you are what you think. If you think you are stupid you must be. She didn’t like that. I told her that putting herself down would achieve nothing. If you want to put yourself down that is your business, but don’t include me in it. I don’t want any part of it. She seemed distant on the phone. I asked if something was wrong. She said she wasn’t interested in speaking so I got off the phone to her. I can’t be bothered talking if the person I am talking to is not receptive. Perhaps, I offended her. She is easy to offend and never takes responsibility for her own life. I won’t say that she won’t take responsibility for her emotions because I don’t believe in that. I live by what I believe. I went to the Doctor’s today. I have a cyst. I have to get it cut out next week and I have to have a routine cancer check. This is standard procedure for anything that is a lump. What if it is cancer? What will be, will be. I can’t change it and it will be too late to quit cigarettes. I hope it is not of course because I saw the pain that mother went through and I don’t particularly want to die that way. If it is, I’ll deal with it then. I won’t worry until I have the results. It is unlikely to be cancer at my age although people get struck down by the big “C” at various ages. I am a little frightened and I don’t want to think about

dying right now. It is, to say the least scary. I was talking to James on the phone and he said that I should get a cancer screen. At first I wasn’t sure if he was speaking balderdash, so I looked online for connections to cancer and cysts. It seems that any form of cancer can cause cysts. It is a good idea to get a cancer screen to see if there is something to worry about. I think this is just routine procedure and I should not worry too much. It is just wise to get examined and of course if it is cancer it may be in its early stages and be perfectly treatable. It is always better to be safe than sorry. If it is terminal, there will be no death bed conversions for me as I know without there is nothing beyond this life. I am not going to start hoping for an afterlife when I clearly do not believe in one. I would like to think there is something after death but the evidence points to nothing. Oh, well we can’t choose when we die unless of course we commit suicide. We’ll see what happens. I was thinking about the cancer that killed mother and wondered whether that was because she was a smoker or because of the toxic waste dump I grew up next to. My parents thought about selling their house in the 80s because of it, but did nothing really to change the fact of their living circumstance. This is when I became an environmentalist. I suppose I was about twelve years old when I started caring about the environment and humankind’s impact on the world. I wish that my parents had moved out of that low socio economic suburb. They didn’t realise the damage they were doing to me by staying there. My voice wasn’t listened to. Clearly I was not entitled to free speech as every Australian is awarded in a democratic society. My parents had a habit of demanding respect and when I didn’t respect them they thought that I was an obstinate child. You can demand respect but if you don’t show respect you get nothing. Respect is due where respect is due. Don’t respect me to show you respect if you are too busy gossiping behind my back. Why should I show the tiniest ounce of it when you clearly don’t respect me? You can demand all you like but it clearly isn’t going to happen. Bethany and Michel came around for a game of cards yesterday. It was good seeing them. The only reason Bethany showed up at all was because she was picked up by Michel. She probably wouldn’t have got here on time or

at all if she had been left to her own devices. That doesn’t surprise me in the least. I was invited to another friend’s place for a make-over and to spend the night. I didn’t really feel like going. I was tired and wanted to sleep early, which is the reason that I invited Michel and Bethany to mine. I wanted a bit of company but only for a few hours. I wasn’t really in a super social mood. I didn’t particularly feel like being “girly” either, I didn’t want to wax my eyebrows, have a tint and dye my hair. I would do that myself if I felt like doing that. I don’t often feel like that. Perhaps once every few months. Some people say I let myself go. I don’t I have a shower every day, I just don’t see the point of preening myself for the opposite sex. I can get sex. I have a partner or boyfriend or whatever you want to call him. We are naturally born with hair and the shape of eyebrows we have. Why would I want to look like a wax manikin? I have better things to do with my time than pretty myself up. Some think that I have a low self esteem because of it. I tried to explain that I really don’t care. They don’t understand that. It is none of your business. I was speaking with Bethany. I asked her how much she’d spent on her shopping. She wouldn’t tell me insisting that it was none of my business. It isn’t my business but I was curious and wanted to give her some tips on saving some money. Because it is none of my business, I suppose she spent way too much and was embarrassed. Some people think the more you spend then the better it is. I think the more you spend the more stupid you are. I offered Bethany and Michel something to eat. Neither of them seemed interested so I made my own dinner while I was playing cards with them. The dinner was simple, six fish fingers with a cup of frozen mixed vegetables. Bethany scolded me and started preaching to me about eating meat. I said to her, “Just as it is none of my business what your shopping cost, it is none of your business what I eat!” She is one of those holier than thou vegetarians. I told her that humans were omnivores not herbivores. She didn’t like that very much. I don’t eat meat all the time, but I do eat it because I benefit from it. Especially fish. I get a lot of out of eating fish. I seem to concentrate better and it is proven that fish increases brain function. Sometimes I wonder if that is not half of Bethany’s problem – being vegetarian and that being the reason she cannot concentrate

so well. Or perhaps it is her mental illness or medication. She does nothing about it, so that is not my problem. So why do I make Bethany my problem? Why should I feed her when she doesn’t budget well enough? I find it hard enough to feed myself at times, so why should I worry about her? In reality I don’t really know. I only wish I understood my own motivations. I don’t. I don’t mind a vegetarian meal. Tonight I am having what is left over of my pasta, frozen vegetables and pasta sauce. I am not putting meat into it. There is nothing wrong with having a vegetarian meal. It is just when you eat only that it can cause your body a problem. I was once vegetarian but returned to eating meat as I was not concentrating too well, which made it hard to write and I was always tired. I found when I introduced a little meat that I was able to concentrate again and wasn’t so tired which was good for me. I try to have vegetables with every meal I eat. I believe in getting your vitamins and minerals naturally rather than through vitamin pills. Mother used to suck back the vitamin pills and it didn’t ensure her good health. You should get all the stuff you need through a healthy balanced diet. That is what I try to do. I quit caffeine, because I decided that I was spending way too much on caffeinated beverages. I also have a heart problem so the caffeine wouldn’t be doing that any good. But that is not my motivation for being caffeine free. I am thinking that smokes will be the next to go, for financial reasons. They aren’t cheap. I am sick of being addicted also. Now I am drinking diet cordial instead of cola and saving a lot of money. I also seem to be getting a lot more water into my body so far. I felt better when I was on caffeine but I have to give my body time to adjust. I will get used to it. People said that decaffeinated stuff sucks, and are hassling me to quit the cigarettes but said that I shouldn’t worry about the caffeine. They don’t understand that I don’t want to be a slave to anything. Including addictions. Whether or not I will quit cigarettes, I haven’t decided. I may very well do so. I don’t know. It is expensive. If I were living in Bali, I wouldn’t be worrying about cigarettes at all, as they are so cheap. My main motivation is my pocket, not really health. Health is just a bonus. Mike rang me. This is strange he doesn’t ring. He emails. He texts. But ring? He was listening to the UB40 cover of “I can’t help falling in love with

you!” He started singing. “Wise men say only fools rush in, but I can’t help falling in love with you”. I asked him what this was all about and he asked me what I thought of the song. I said I loved UB40. He said that is why he was singing me this version. Then he sang: “Take my hand, Take my whole life too, I can’t help falling in love with you”. I said to him: “You are drunk”. He told me to shut up and listen to lyrics carefully. I told him that I knew the lyrics. I asked him what he was playing at. He said that he was being romantic. I said that romance is a human construction. He said that I needed to really listen and understand. I don’t. Why is he ringing me up drunk and singing me silly songs from the nineties? The man confuses me sometimes. I concluded he is being silly and teasing me. I was thinking this evening that I would like to get stoned. I fancy Mary Jane. It is better that I don’t smoke it but I fancy it. It would be nice for a change. I also fancy a woman. Haven’t slept with a woman since my partner and I had that threesome. I will be meeting up with a girl later this week who is interested in having a threesome with us. I talked to Mike and said that I would like to get to know the next woman and have a threesome with her after a few meetings. He agreed that it can be awkward if we do not do it this way. I like to get to know the person first. I don’t know why but it makes the sex better. Perhaps it is my age. In my twenties I was able to have the perpetual one night stands and it wouldn’t bother me. Now, somehow I want to connect on a personal level seeing as I am close to forty. You become quite different when you are middle aged. Once I was interested in Bethany but after living with her for a few years that wore off. It wasn’t lust. It was a general interest in the personality. However, I have come to realise that she has personality retardation. It is because she doesn’t try to fight her illness. I don’t let my condition get the better of me. I keep moving forward. Bethany has an eating disorder, she gores herself full of food and wonders why she puts on weight. She calls herself fat and because she feels bad about herself she eats more. Comfort eating. I am not the smallest girl, but I eat when I am hungry. I suppose I could exercise more and restrict my food to be wafer thin but it doesn’t interest me to be like a twig. I don’t like society’s pressure on women to be thin. You

are how you are. Some of us are bigger than others and some of us are smaller. It will always be that way. I think society in general has a lot to answer for when it comes to eating disorders. I have no interest in starving myself or vomiting up my food. I am who I am and accept me as I am. If you don’t like me that is your problem. You don’t have to like me and I don’t have to like you. That’s just life! You are not going to like everyone you meet. There again you think I am sociopath. But you are so wrong about me. Get to know me before you judge me.

***

I got the cyst removed today. I asked the doctor if there was a routine cancer check that I can have done. He said he’d send the cyst off for analysis. The Dr and I were having a discussion about many topics while he excised the cyst from my armpit. When he’d finally cut it out he said: “Look at this...” showing me the lump he had just excavated from my body. I was intrigued and he was smiling as though he had gotten some distinct pleasure out of cutting it out. I suppose everyone is interested in something. Even doctors. He seemed to get some kind of twisted joy out of it, or perhaps that is a misinterpretation for him feeling like a job well done and that he had helped someone with their ailment. I took the lump to pathology and looked at the specimen and thought: “That thing was really inside of me... gees, it is bigger than I thought”. The nurse at pathology said: “That’s lovely” sarcastically. I said to her that it was intriguing and she looked at me a bit strangely. Most would get turned off by the blood and gore of the thing. I just was mesmerised by it. As a child I remembered bringing home a dead snake and my mother was mortified. She didn’t like snakes. I said to her: “I want to keep it”. So I went down to the shops and bought some mentholated spirits to put the snake in. I got a jar and poured the mentholated spirits in and it sat on the shelf of my bedside table for years. My mother wouldn’t touch the jar while dusting, I had to move it for her. This reminded me of Amelie. She’d shown some displeasure toward a spider web in the corner of my balcony. I said: “Would you like me to

remove it?” She nodded insistently. I got my bare finger and picked up the spider and looked at it. I told her that it was only Daddy long legs and proceeded to flick it over the balcony. She was frozen with fear and I cleared away the rest of the cobwebs with my fingers. She looked at me as if I were some superhero or something. I said: “Better?” and she nodded. The only fear I have is death. Not afraid of much else. Dead bodies don’t disgust me or frighten me, but dying does. Today, I am off to yet another interesting seminar at university. I had to cancel with a girl I was meeting for a potential threesome. This girl seems nicer than the last we engaged with. She’s open-minded and seems to like the idea of a threesome. She explained to me that she’d done it once with her ex- husband and really enjoyed the experience. I told her that I don’t just want her to be the meat in the sandwich. I said that I’d like to make a new friend. It would be much nicer if the experience was ongoing, instead of searching around for a woman all the time. It would also be nice to make a new friend. I like the idea. I don’t think of her as a plaything and I told her this. I am more respectful than that. If you want to be treated with respect you have to give respect. Respect is one of the most important things in life. As you would know, I never really respected my parents. They seemed to demand it. So did my Aunt. I don’t understand that. Demanding to be respected. Respect is, where respect is due, in my opinion. Bethany didn’t show me much respect at times. She took me for granted. You should never take anyone for granted, because one day they may not be there. You should never take life for granted as you can die at any second. Yes it is true that I have a morbid fascination with death, but I also fear it. I don’t know what I will do the day I have to face it. Perhaps, I may take my own life one day if things are bad enough. However, my death will not be a fashion statement to the entire world saying: “This is how miserable I am”. It will be calculated and as peaceful as I can possibly make it. I don’t want a terminal illness where suffering is inevitable and the process of dying is long and protracted. I want to die instantly or in my sleep. I don’t suppose that Bethany understands this. She’d rather cause herself the most possible pain

on the way out. It is a form of self-punishment for some kind of sin she may believe that she has committed. I don’t believe in sin. I don’t believe in evil. Things are just as they are. I view things in the terms of the beneficial and the non beneficial. If it is beneficial to kill yourself then by all means don’t let me stop you. That doesn’t mean that I agree with suicide bombers. Who am I to take away someone else’s life? Who am I to say it is your time to go? I can’t understand that mentality. I don’t like violence and it is something I’d rather avoid if I can. I suppose I’d use violence to defend myself, but I view that as vastly different. Meursault killed an Arab. Does that make him a vial human- being? I don’t think so. He was misunderstood. You misunderstood him.

***

Today is a weird day, Mike proposed marriage. I am taken aback. It doesn’t mean anything. This is the man that said that you don’t need to have the government’s permission to be with someone. When he asked me, I was silent. He asked: “So what do you think?” I responded with: “I don’t know”. He said the answer was clearly yes or no. I don’t think it is that simple. I don’t want to be a good little house wife cleaning up after a mucky guy like Mike. He mentioned that we could go to Greece together. I like that idea. Why do I have to be married to do that? It doesn’t make any sense. What is wrong with what we have now? As a committed atheist I don’t see the point. Why do I have to be recognised as being anyone other than who I am? I don’t want to be Mrs Mike Smythe. I’d lose my identity. I said to him: “Don’t think that I am taking your last name!” He asked: “Why not?” I told him that I did not want to lose my identity. I am who I am and who I am partnered with should not change that. He seemed surprised. I asked him if he loved me. He said that he did in some form. I became very uncomfortable. I told him that I liked him and that I did not want to hurt him. He seemed unperturbed by this statement. He said: “Why do you need to be in love to marry me?” I told him that I didn’t and that I had once told my mother that was the point of it all. He treated me well. I suppose I could. But what about my identity? What about my individualism? I don’t want to be

assimilated by the marriage beast. He didn’t seem to understand. I explained to him that I had aspirations of owning my own flat and having my own income and that I didn’t want to lose that. I don’t want to be a kept woman like the good little breeders of the world. I told him that we weren’t going to have children so it didn’t matter particularly. I asked him if I could continue living in my own flat by myself if we married. He said “No, you’d move in with me”. And I’d be expected to do his cooking and cleaning is that it? He said nothing and seemed surprised by my response. I was surprised that he would even ask me this seeing as he knew that I was not into marriage particularly. I told him to hire a maid if he didn’t want to clean. He tried to explain that it wasn’t it. I asked again: “Are you kidding me? Are you saying that you love me? I don’t know what to say to that. What was wrong with what we have now?” He said that there was nothing different. I said that there would be. Society would expect things of me, things that I am not ready to fulfil. I like being alone and I like the occasional company of a lover but I don’t think that I could too easily go back to defacto or even get married. The idea makes my blood curdle. I told him that I had played a good little house wife once and I said: “Look where that landed me. All my possessions were taken and I was left without a home. He didn’t care whether I was homeless in the end. All he was interested in was his own self- gratification.” I can’t be used again. I don’t think that he fully understands the implications. I want a clear distinction. I am me and he is who he is. I don’t think that can be done with marriage. I’d be asked to sacrifice who I am for the sake of love. I don’t love. As Simon and Garfunkel say: “I am a rock, I am an Island”. Then I said to him: “Do you really want to fulfil these gender roles and recognised conventions of marriage?” He told me that he thought he did. I said “That is it, you want my passport and residence status of England don’t you? Ok, if you want to marry me for that reason I can understand.” Then I got a short sharp no. He said that he wouldn’t use me for that. I said a passport is just a passport to somewhere else in the world and if he wanted me to open that gateway, I could understand. He seemed insulted and told me that I had foot in mouth disease. I told said rather sarcastically: “Thanks a lot!” I don’t have foot and mouth disease I am just struggling to understand the reason for

the proposal. I am gobsmacked. I am baffled. I thought we had an understanding. Obviously not. I like him and that is no reason not to marry him as I have said before love is a bunch of hormones and a manmade construction. I don’t believe in love. It is bullshit. We obviously have to discuss this through, but I am to say the least flabbergasted. I don’t know what to think. My head is swimming with indecision and confusion. As I said I could marry him, but isn’t it easier not to. Perhaps, continuing with what we have now is the way to go. Mike said in the end: “Do what you want. It was just an idea. Don’t get so flustered over it”. But that is it I can’t help but be flustered. People don’t usually ask you to marry them. This is not an ordinary event. Have I made the right decision? I don’t know. What am I think about all this? It is as though I should just accept and go along with in it. Like it is a natural progression or something? I like living on my own, childless, with my cat. Certainly living with a cat is a lot less complicated. I have been burnt before. I trust Mike, but how do I know that this would be the right thing to do? I don’t. I don’t want to take the risk that it involves. I had my life-long possessions taken from me in a break up and I can’t afford to start all over again. I’d lose my independence and I would lose my sense of self. My sense of self is very important to me. Surely he can see this. Why on earth has he proposed? I don’t understand that. I don’t want to be a wife. I have said it before. I am happy being a partner but not a wife. I am not even sure that I’d move in if he asked me too. Too much. Too much. Too much. Bethany would be happy if someone proposed to her, but there again she doesn’t have much of an identity to lose. I would never tell her this, but I most certainly think it. She defines her self-worth as being “needed” by a man, being “needed” by society. To society, I say: “You can go fuck yourself”. I am who I am and I don’t want to take this on. Oh, my fucking God!

***

I was talking to Bethany and told her that Mike had proposed to me. She said that was excellent news and I said that I was not so sure. Then she told me

some good news of her own. Apparently, she had gotten a part time job with the government cleaning at schools. I had prompted her to apply for to apply for the government cleaning jobs some months earlier as she has experience in the field and I really wanted her to have more money rather than just living on government benefits. She had been dismayed as she had been out of work for over a year and it was really getting her down. She likes to be a productive bee. Sure enough, I can understand that. She said to me that she had to cancel a social occasion with “Mr Boring” in order to organise the paperwork for her new job. I said to her that I was proud of her that she’d become more productive and all “Mr Boring” could say was that he was disappointed that she was not meeting with him. When I thought about it, this angered me as I thought he was only in this relationship with Bethany for his own self-gratification and I told him this over the telephone. I congratulated her but “Mr Boring” couldn’t even do that. All he could talk about was, that he was missing out on something and that she should be there for him. I couldn’t think of something more selfish. A friendship is a two way street. Or at least it was the last time I checked. I have been thinking about what it means to exist. The concept of “bad faith” in existentialism has a point. All the monotheistic religions are a demonstration of bad faith. There is no basis to it and it would seem as it were people need hope in life. They so strongly want to feel that death is not the end and others procreate to know that their offspring will go on to keep their line going. I don’t understand this. Whilst I don’t agree with monotheistic religions, it is not my business if you believe in it. I saw a Muslim woman at university the other day. Her hijab was lovely and I commented on how nice it looked. She seemed surprised and the proceeded to tell me how she’d had someone just the day before have a go at her for wearing it. She said: “Australians are so racist”. I nodded in agreement. That is it, the average Australian is too concerned with difference and has a go at those they find a threat. This is wrong, but it is so prolific in Australian society. I am different. I am an outcast and I cop it all the time. Not from walking down the street as no one would know that I am different, but when they get to know me that is when the judgement sets in. You are a Muslim. You are a Christian. So what? Do I have

a go at your stupid belief in an invisible God? No I don’t. I think but don’t express it out of respect for you and if you asked me I’d tell you that I am an atheist and that there is no God in my opinion. If you want to believe that, that is your own business. You think that I am a sociopath but you are wrong. I am like John Nash, I have already told you this. We both suffer paranoid schizophrenia. James thinks that people who suffer schizophrenia go around and shoot up people like Martin Bryant in the Port Arthur massacre. I don’t know if he has schizophrenia. If he does, he cannot use his illness as an excuse for slaughtering people. I don’t kill people. I don’t see the point. The consequences are not worth it and I am a pacifist at best. I don’t believe in unnecessary violence. Yet you Christians and Muslims are going to war over an invisible God. How can you justify your religion? Your beliefs? When you both follow the ten commandments and it says: “Thou shalt not kill”? You do anyway and think this is perfectly justified. You’d kill me for not conforming or at least make my life darn uncomfortable to live, just because I am different. I don’t have to follow your religion. I don’t have to believe in “Big Daddy”. I don’t even take my parental authority down on earth let alone believe in an invisible Dad in the sky as you do. You think that I am the crazy one. I think it is you that is crazy to believe a book full of fairy tales that are suitable for the primitive. It may have been justified being religious in the Middle Ages, but with age of science and knowing you still cling to your childish beliefs. You want to think that you are special and that there is some greater meaning to it all. I am telling you there isn’t. You come from nothing and to nothing you return. You aren’t unique. You aren’t special. There are billions on this planet and yet you think you are special. That is bullshit. Yes, you think I am a sociopath who devoid of feelings. You are wrong. You don’t know me. So you can’t judge. I attended the postgraduate gaming night again and it was good to socialise with other like minded people. The gaming night seems filled with mathematicians and scientists. There doesn’t seem much interest from the arts or humanities faculties. Perhaps it is because the scientific or mathematical mind is more logical or strategic. I am not all that strategic but I do enjoy playing games. I invited Bethany and Michel over for a game of monopoly on the

weekend. Bethany won and seemed more interested in the gaming than usual. It surprised me. Bethany now has a part time job working for the government and seems a lot happier being productive. It is afternoon work which suits her down to a tea. I am happy for her. My work involves writing poetry for my postgraduate thesis. I am an employed poet really. But I must write. I can’t help it. It drives me. It makes life worth living. I don’t suppose that you understand this and I don’t expect you to. After all you probably aren’t a writer. Writing is my lifeline, as art was my mother’s lifeline when she was younger but she gave up such talent to be a stay at home Mum. It wasn’t until she got sick and lost her leg that I got a sketch pad and said: “For God’s sake, draw!” I know this meant a lot to my mother. She was depressed and to take time out for her artistic merit again helped her live even though she didn’t have much time left. I was given her art upon her death. I have yet to frame it. This is one of the positive things I remember about mother. Why she gave up drawing just bring up me I can never fathom? My father had worked in the bank in his early days and worked his way up to credit management. This was a dead end job. He was miserable just before retiring. He’d got accepted into his high school in England for his writing ability. He wrote well. He didn’t pursue it like me. I don’t know why. Perhaps if my parents had pursued what they were really good at and loved then they wouldn’t have lived in the terrible suburb I grew up in. They surely settled for second best. I am good at drama as well and relatively good at sculpture. Writing poetry is my main passion. In my high school years I expressed interest in becoming an actor and my mother said: “You’ll never make a living out of that.” It was a passion that drove me. I loved the arts, but poetry was my strong point. At about seventeen I said that I was going to write and both parents disapproved. By this time I could not divorce myself from it. It was ingrained to every fibre of my being. It was who I was. I tried other menial jobs to satisfy my parents and wasn’t very good at anything. After ten years the workforce I decided this was it. I had to pursue my passion. I had to become a writer. I only wish that I had realised that ten years in the workforce had been a waste of time. I would have had a PhD by now and be pursuing a living in lecturing or

something like that. At least if I teach what I believe in then I can write on the side. If I ever make a living out of this I shall give up the day job. I have to try. I know that you think that I am nuts and that I should get a real job like my Aunt but I can’t agree. This is my livelihood. This is me. Without the drive to write I might as well die. I am not satisfied unless I write. You don’t understand this I know but there again you are not a writer so how can I expect you to understand. You sit in your menial job and marginalise the poets and artists. The only people you worship are those that are famous. When will I be famous? Like the song says. I don’t care I just want to succeed. I just want to publish and I want my immortality in writing. I am not passing down my name and I am going to oblivion so I might as well leave my legacy behind. I am sure that you understand that, as I know you long for or believe in immortality of some sort. Perhaps you believe you’ll be reborn or perhaps you believe you will go to heaven or hell. The most I can ask for is to be remembered, to put my thumbprint on society somehow. Leave my mark so to speak. Michel and I are buying Bethany a present together to bring the cost of shopping down for her birthday. Last year I went thirds in a birthday gift for Bethany and it was really inexpensive and she loved the gift. Call me cheap. I believe that getting something for under ten dollars that is a good gift is the way to go. Now that I am no longer living with Bethany, I have less obligatory gifts to get for those I don’t really care about or don’t really want to give the time of day to. Mr Boring is one of them along with Bethany’s mother and foster brother. The most they’ll see from me this year is a card. Perhaps the foster brother may get something cheap to remember his birthday and Christmas, but it is likely to be put into by Bethany and myself to keep costs down. Because the boy’s birthday is so close to Christmas it is likely that the gift will be a birthday/Christmas gift. The boy is a pre-teen and it is likely that it will be an MP3 player from both of us. They can be gotten for thirty dollars these days. Fairly inexpensive for two occasions and when split between two parties. Last year I upgraded my computer and the old one was bought by Bethany and she gave it to her mother and the foster son as a birthday/Christmas gift for both of

them. They are poor and don’t have the money for MP3 players and stuff like computers. I sold the old computer to Bethany for fifty dollars which bought birthday/Christmas gifts for two people in the form of something more tangible. I think because it was such a big gift it was appreciated. The boy is almost in high school and will need a computer to do his homework on shortly, so it was pretty much an investment toward the child’s education and I knew that the old computer was not simply going to end up in a dumpster at the side of the road. If it is not broke then why chuck it in my opinion. It was just too slow for what I needed, so I needed to upgrade. I kept the computer for about five years before upgrading as I didn’t see the point of buying a new one every two years. I kept it until it was no longer compatible with my university. I don’t see the point in having the latest Ipad or tablet. It doesn’t make sense. And about getting things for my father he’s just going to get cheap valued gift vouchers from me because all he does is whine about what I give him and I have spent lots of money on him and don’t see the point. My stepmother is not much better as she invariably gets insulted by the cards I send her for her birthday. I don’t see the point. I am not going to bother this year. I find her ungrateful. I don’t like obligatory gifts or expensive ones anymore. I am fed up with your consumerism. I hate consumerism. You can keep spending your money but I refuse to. Yeah, I know you are judging me for being a cheap skate. It doesn’t surprise me at all and that is your problem. I thought about my mortality again today. I have another lump underneath my arm that I have to get the Dr to check. The last one was not cancerous so it is unlikely that this one will be. I had washed it and went away and then the other day it came back bigger and worse than ever. I started a script of antibiotics. I don’t like antibiotics. I try not to take them too often. It interferes with your body’s natural ability to fight off infection by itself. I only take it if I absolutely have to. I suspect that this cyst will have to be cut out as well as it is deep. I don’t think that the antibiotics will do much other than fight the infection that is around it. It won’t make it disappear. I am getting a bit worried because this is the second lump that has appeared in a short time. What if I have cancer and don’t know it? I don’t want to die of cancer. I suppose

100

we all have to die of something. Cancer or heart attack it still comes to the same conclusion – death. I just lost a friend to a brain tumour recently. It seems that everyone is dying around me. She had the first tumour operated on but the second killed her. I couldn’t return to Brisbane to attend the funeral on such short notice. We were close once but we fell out as she said that I was obsessive. She’d come to Perth at the same time as me. She returned to Brisbane and family and I did not. I was glad to be away from my family. She yearned for family attention. I don’t understand that. She was forty-four and could not be without her mother and father. Personally, I believe that children truly come into their own when their parents die. They are no longer dictated to by an authority. Family means obligation. That person would never know the true freedom she would have got with her parents dying because she died first. Rumour has it that she had a stressful job and that is what may have contributed to her cancer. I can’t say. I hadn’t known her in recent years and we were estranged. My father attended the funeral but can’t even see his living daughter for his birthday? He didn’t know her well. I knew her better. I thought about sending flowers to the family and decided that everyone would be doing that. It was unnecessary expense for something that would wither and die as she had done. I thought about it and with careful consideration, I looked around for dollar cards. I sent one to the family and one to her husband that I had once knew. I don’t know if they got there as I haven’t heard any feedback on the matter and I doubt that I will. I don’t understand my father and stepmother going but they did. I suppose it was good in way that I didn’t go as it would have been awkward seeing the stepmother again. No doubt she would have been rude to me. If I have cancer I will deal with it then and if I do, it does not necessarily mean I won’t survive it in this day and age. What will be, will be. I can’t change it so there is no use in trying. Death is inevitable and you can’t choose when you go unless you take your own life. The day of the funeral I had my driving test. I couldn’t go because it was too short a notice to change arrangements for the test without losing money. I decided to go for the test anyway. I passed the first go much to my surprise and it would seem as it were that I’ll have my license in the next six months. I

101

still have to go through the loops in order to obtain it. We’ll see how things go. When I told people that I had passed the test they automatically thought that I had my license. It doesn’t work that way anymore there is a lot more red tape to it these days. But that is life. I only have to wait six months now and drive twenty-five hours and I’ll have it. I can’t wait until I am mobile. It will make life much easier. I have saved enough money to go to Bali, for a car and to put a lump sum down on my student debt. I can’t wait till I am finally debt free and the only thing that I go into debt for is a house. I don’t understand people taking out personal loans to go on holiday. It is better to save the money. I don’t understand people going in debt for a car. I mean seriously live within your means. Why would you want to keep up with Jones’? I never fathomed that. My Aunt is like that. She used to give us brand name presents to show how affluent she was. It was senseless. I never knew what to do with the last present that my Aunt gave me. It was a twenty-four carat gold manicure set. I mean, not much thought went into that. I would have preferred a sandwich maker or a cheap T-shirt from Kmart. At least it would have been more useful. I don’t understand posh behaviour yet my Aunt buys into that. I get my jeans from Kmart for about seven dollars a pair. They aren’t flash. They do the job and it would seem that some Indonesian or Chinese person slaved on them for a few cents. I have a conscience but I can’t worry about every single starving child. I have to keep myself out of poverty. I have been there and I know what is like and I choose not to live that again. Stuff being rich. But having what I need instead of struggling is the way to go. I received an email from that lady I met in Bali asking me for three thousand dollars to help her set up her own business. I didn’t respond. That is a fair chunk of my savings. If I were super rich, I may have indulged her but I am not. I don’t understand why she thought that she could ask me for such money after meeting with me twice. Like I would give it to her? I told Mike. He said: “Those Indonesians are crazy”. They aren’t, they are desperate and probably have nothing to lose by asking. To say the least, I was very uncomfortable with her asking. And it is not like she’d kept regular contact; it was an email out of the blue asking for money. I can’t afford it. I have nothing to be guilty about. I’d

102

love to help the third world, but I’ve got to keep myself afloat in this capitalist society. I can’t worry about every bleeding heart. I see the homeless people on the street with their little signs asking for a dollar. I go on and ignore them. My question is, why are they not on welfare trying to get a job? This is further complicated by the smell of booze that often accompanies them. If you can’t afford to eat you shouldn’t be drinking. I’ve been homeless but never on the street. I have been without money but kept myself from the streets. I pretty much did what I could. I desperately got any job I could. I saved. I scrimped and I got there. Street people are one of two kinds – they are generally mentally ill and have been booted from their homes or they are addicts. For the mentally ill – I feel for them. There needs to be some support in place, some social services that will help them out. But for the addicts I have no sympathy – that is a life choice. I do remember one street person telling me that he’d rather spent rent money on drugs than live in the constrictive walls of a shelter. That’s fair enough – then don’t ask me for two dollars to fund your lifestyle if you want to live that way. This is when it becomes a choice. Not the best choice, but a choice all the same. Why should I feel sorry for you if you choose a certain lifestyle? It isn’t my business. Yet so many will throw a dollar their way. I’ve been thinking about what will happen next and what to expect next. What about when my PhD is over? I could move to Greece with Mike and be a housewife whose aim is to write or I can get a full time job and write on the side. Something in me, tells me that it will be getting a full time job. I don’t think that I want to be a housewife. I saw what happened to my Mum when she did that. She lost her identity. She lost the motivation to draw. I never want to lose the motivation to write. It is part of me. I think that I want my own flat. I think that I want to be a separate entity. Don’t get me wrong, I like Mike’s company but full time housewife? That scares me. I don’t think I can do it. I hope that he will understand and won’t break up with me just because I want to pursue my own life. I enjoy the once to twice a week visits. I am not sure that I want that full time now. Perhaps it would be nice to have a husband when I retire. I don’t know what to think about the situation. I am discombobulated. Being a

103

housewife does have its appeal but I am not sure that it is me. I think I have been on my own so long that I like my own company. Even when living with Bethany I was in a sense on my own. I was going out with Mike sure but I was no one’s defacto, no one’s wife and I think I like it that way. As I told you before I have been bruised and burnt from my defacto relationship and I don’t think that I am willing to take the risk again. There again life is about risk. I have taken the risk to write. So why not marry? I don’t know. I am so confused. My head feels dizzy thinking about it. I don’t want children, so why does Mike want to marry? I don’t know if he loves me. I know that he cares. But love? Perhaps he too is confused. He said that he’d been listening to 70s music and felt depressed. He looked at his thinning hair in the mirror and said: “Look, I am getting old”. I asked him if he was having a mid-life crisis. He didn’t seem to think so. I don’t see the point of getting depressed about getting older. We all age and you are not dead, so you have something to celebrate. That’s life. You live. You die as I have said before. All I know is that I will keep fighting injustice until I die. I don’t expect you to believe me or to particularly care. You are too concerned with your white picket fences and perfectly manicured lawns. I don’t buy into that. I like the idea of living in a flat. Not only is it cheaper to buy, and maintain. I don’t have to worry about lawns. I think they are a waste of time. I think they are a waste of space in this sunburnt land. They are hungry for our precious water. What a waste. Then you have to mow it. You have to fertilise it. You have to water it. I don’t understand people buying into the manicured garden ideal. If you are going to have a garden like Mike, have a productive one. Grow your own vegetables. Have your own chickens, but screw the lawn. If you need to grow grass for a pasture to feed your sheep, cows, horses and other livestock then fair enough. How many people actually do that? I have seen so many people water their drive ways to get rid of the excess leaves. I don’t get that. For heaven’s sake, use a broom or a rake that is what they are for. I suppose people are just too lazy and they don’t think that water is a finite resource like anything else. Especially in Australia where the rainfall is limited. I suppose

104

that you won’t listen. I can’t make you, but you can’t make conform to your way of living either. Today, my cat wanted my attention and I thought about it. I must have a maternal instinct. I have had animals since my teens. I like cats especially. Mike likes cats too. He doesn’t understand why dogs are supposedly man’s best friend. I don’t agree with this either. Cats are a lot more independent. I took my cat in when she was hit by a car. She lost her tail as a result. I took her to the vet and had the bad tail amputated. At first she didn’t adjust too well to being an indoor animal. I suppose that the great outdoors is all that she’d ever known. She finally adjusted and bonded to me but it did take a while. The vet guessed that she was about a year old when I came to fall for her. She is a sweetie. I suppose that cats are better children. They don’t scream and carry on. They don’t demand your attention twenty- four hours a day and they are nicer. My maternal instinct has definitely manifested in animals. I can’t help myself. I have always ended up with the stray. I have always ended up with the rescue animal. That is the way I am. I don’t look for animals. They find their way into my life somehow and I like to know that I am giving an animal a better life than they once had. I don’t agree with outdoor cats as they hunt our precious wildlife. I believe that they have less health problems if you keep them indoors. They don’t come back with abysses from cat fights and the like. Dirt doesn’t get into the wounds. It is all round a better way to be with animals. My cat is my child. I have no need to reproduce a mini me. I prefer my feline companion. No doubt I would have been burnt as a witch in the witch trials. Thank goodness that sort of paranoia doesn’t exist today – otherwise I’d already be dead.

***

I attended a postgraduate music seminar today at university and realised that the concept of being musical or unmusical is highly debated. There seems to be a whole range of stigma around the music scene that only the musically talented can get into the inner circle. I believe that we are all

105

inherently musical beings. I think that music is an art form that makes us entirely human and without it, our existence is meagre. I would class myself a musical person but I never felt stigmatised when it came to music because I came from the hippy culture which where music was about making a statement. It was about something you felt. It was not about technical precision which is commonly seen in the formal study of music. Only the talented can perform and it excludes those that would otherwise be musical without the stigma. Music is about enjoyment more than anything else. It is about the feeling. How it touches you or makes you think. I suppose you just like a tune and bop along to it. I feel it. I ask: what is the music trying to tell me? I dissect the meaning of lyrics and music. This why I found this seminar particularly interesting. My mother and father did one thing correct – they steeped me like a slow brewing tea bag in music making while I was growing up. It was encouraged. So I sang. So I played multiple instruments. So I paid attention to the lyrics of songs and what they meant. I suppose you think that I am a mad artist by now. I’m not what you think. I am much more than what you think. Don’t box me. Later in the evening I went to the theatre with Michel. He’d never been before. We went to see “Old Love”. It was about a young man bringing home a woman old enough to be his grandmother and the stigma associated with this type of relationship. I couldn’t help but think of my defacto as I watched this. It reminded me how he’d been ten years my junior. There was much stigma associated with my relationship with him, especially from his parents. It would have been ok if it were reversed. If I was the female child bringing home the older man. I think they didn’t like the fact that I wasn’t about to have any children. They wanted a good little breeder to provide them with grandchildren. I was seen as a cougar and he was seen as my toy boy. I felt for the characters and wondered why younger men with older women was so stigmatised. At the moment I am with an older man. Mike is four years my senior and that is somehow acceptable but I can’t think why that is acceptable but the other is not. Men with younger women get the label of sugar daddy and somehow this is acceptable in our society. I realised after I had a relationship with a younger

106

man that it came with problems. He didn’t like my 80s music. He was born in the 80s. He had no appreciation for 80s fashion and believed that it was a decade that shouldn’t have existed. But it did. The 80s was the realisation of the depleting ozone layer and the greenhouse gases which people have come to forget about. Songs spoke about environmental issues. Songs like We are the World had a purpose to feed starving Africans. Why are people today not so socially conscious? They think about face book statuses and their tweets but don’t give a hoot about real world affairs such as rising sea levels, endangered species and the like. What about those children in third world nations who spend twelve hour days making your computers and smart phones. You don’t really think about the implications do you? I don’t know what made the world become so selfish. I don’t understand the need for self gratification and need to be famous. But there you have it. It seems to be a normal desire. I was thinking about Mike today. I wondered if he had fallen in love with me. I hope not. I don’t know how to take love. I like him and have affection for him but I am not sure that I love him. Yes, he is special but do you have to love someone for them to be special to you? I don’t think so. This world is too focused on love and hate. I don’t see life in those kind of extremes. You are a paedophile so we hate you. We want to crucify you for what you have done. Whatever happened to the idea of rehabilitation? Prevention is better than cure. If I don’t love, does that mean that I too should be crucified? You would say “of course, not”, but you don’t mean it. You’d tell me how devoid my life is without extreme emotions. I am kind of glad that I am not that emotional. It causes me to use my head. You get respected in society when you wear the right mask and utter the right words. I have no idea what to say to your societal conventions. I have no idea how to wear a mask and pretend to be something I am not. Perhaps you could enlighten me. When I was at school, I was perceived as being “uncool”. I struggled to fit in. I asked a few kids what would make me popular and they said that it was about listening to the right music and wearing the right clothes. I tried that. It didn’t work. I was still the subject of ridicule. You don’t like me now and they didn’t like me then. If I don’t wear a

107

bra then that is a problem in your eyes. What law tells me that I have to wear a bra and shave my legs? There isn’t one. Do you know how ludicrous you sound when you call me disgusting for not shaving under my armpits? You say that I am unkempt. Unclean. Truth is I shower twice a day. You don’t know me so stop judging me. I see the Doctor tomorrow. He is probably going to tell me that he needs to cut out another cyst. I will have yet another scar in my armpit. This doesn’t bother me as having the cyst bothers me more. It hurts. It may or may not be the prelude to cancer. It is unlikely that it is. It makes you think about the possibility of it though. Life is about possibilities – good and bad. You make a decision with how you are going to cope. You live your life – only ultimately you can decide to be content or depressed. You take responsibility for your life – no one else does. I am not a victim and I refuse to be a victim. I am not the object of your ridicule. I won’t be downtrodden. I will not be your slave. My name is not Caliban. I am a loner like Caliban, but I refuse to let you be my Prospero. I won’t accept such a life. I am free to make my own decisions. I am free to live my life as I see fit. Who are you to judge? You don’t know me, so fuck off! I have a friend called Richard who has cerebral palsy. Mr Boring, Bethany, Richard and I went to a movie. People stared at me talking to Richard and someone uttered the word: “Spastic”. I stopped in the street and started to yell at the person who uttered the word. Richard told me not to worry about it. I told him that I was worried about it as no one had the right to judge him for his disability. Richard had contracted cerebral palsy from being dropped on his head as a child. He couldn’t help what had happened to him. It wasn’t his fault. Then when we were buying tickets to the movie Mr Boring said: “I don’t understand this retard!” I screamed at him and said: “How dare you, when you yourself have a disability? How can you be so judgemental?” He spoke under his breath. I could tell that Mr Boring felt uncomfortable going to a movie with Richard. Richard remained silent. Richard and I sat together and he said: “I don’t like that guy that you call Mr Boring”. I told him that I could hardly blame him and that his dislike for the man was understandable. Richard thanked me

108

for defending him. I said to him that it wasn’t a problem. I told him that all my friends deserve respect no matter their disability or issue. Richard is a very brave individual. He has completed a degree in social work and a postgraduate diploma of sexology, which is more than Mr Boring can say about himself. Mr Boring thinks he has achieved something and will tell you about it when he has washed his socks. Mr Boring talks makes banal conversation about his daily excrement habits. I couldn’t believe that one day he was talking to me about his bowel movements. It was of no import, but he felt the need to share anyway. I don’t understand that. Richard viewed him as a jerk. I told Richard that he might be less able bodied but that he was a much more interesting person to have a conversation with. He thanked me. I told him that it didn’t matter. What mattered was the mind. Today my neighbours were making a lot of noise. I tried to write, but they had children running around in their one bedroom flat and making a toy out of the elevator. I told them to shut up and that is the thing with people with extended families they let their children run amok and do very little to curb their behaviour. Children need boundaries and discipline. How else will they learn what is expected of them as adults? I am all for letting children play but a block of one bedroom flats is hardly an appropriate playground for children. I was talking to my real estate today and she said that quite often foreign families with two or three children want to live in a one bedroom flat. They might do this in India or Indonesia, but it is not a suitable environment for families. I don’t understand wanting to cram five people into a one bedroom flat. For goodness sake, stop being so cheap and get a house in an outer suburb which would amount to the same in as a one bedroom flat in the inner suburbs. Some people think that high rise living is ok for loud music, parties and children when clearly it is not. I don’t know what these people are thinking. I have some early twenties neighbours that like to cook up curries and the smell wafts throughout my flat. I wonder how strong the concoction must be in their own flat if my eyes water from smelling it from her. Then to the other side there are some eighteen year old first year university students that thinks that every Friday night is party time. I tire of their rap music and crap 2000s pop. At least the 80s had

109

substance, unlike the music of today which is seriously lacking any message or meaning. They talk about their “bitches” and “hoes”. Those in the possy. Since when did Australia become so Americanised? You see it everywhere with advent of McDonalds on every street corner and Subway enterprises taking over the suburbs. There at least two fast food chains in this suburb littered in amongst the cafe strip and three in the suburb over from me. I can’t believe that these conglomerates are taking over the entire city of Perth. They aren’t even cheap to eat at anymore. I find that making my own pizzas is cheaper than going to Pizza Hut or Dominos and it tends to be nicer to, and to say the least healthier. If I feel lazy on a Friday night with Mike, I will buy a frozen pizza from the supermarket for three to four dollars and cook that up instead. It isn’t hard. I’ve been playing a lot of board games lately with Michel and Bethany. It was good to see Bethany actually show an interest in something. It appears that Mr Boring has no interest in board games because he says it is too cerebral. I don’t understand not wanting to think. I don’t understand wanting to switch off to the world but that is it. Some people don’t respect an education or want to think. They are content just living and existing. If you just want to exist then why don’t you take yourself out of the game? Kill yourself? It is not merely enough to exist as Mr Boring does. He thinks that life is about doing menial house duties and never having a challenge. I don’t understand that. He wants to exist in his perfectly lazy cushioned existence. If there is no challenge in life, if you don’t want to change the world then what is there to live for? There has to be purpose surely? I don’t know what your purpose is, but mine is to write. John Nash’s was to make breakthroughs. Martin Luther King’s was to change attitudes. How can you not want to change the world? I know you want to be famous, keep up with Jones’, be good looking, fit in and be popular, but beyond that superficial existence what have you really got to live for? Tell me that. Bethany and I are going halves in Michel’s present. We hope to get something nice but cheap. You see the double buying power brings down the cost. I said to Mike that his birthday and Christmas present this year is the trip to Bali. It is the most expensive gift I am getting. A trip to Bali for both of us is

110

equal to one trip to Brisbane to see an ungrateful parent. I’d rather put the money into going overseas for both of us and enjoy myself then to ever be obliged to spend a birthday with someone who doesn’t really appreciate it. I’ve found DVDs make good presents and when split between two people are quite affordable. It seems that the DVD has been circumvented by Blu-rays and that this technology is now more popular. It is like I tunes outdoing the MP3, and before that was CD outdoing the LP. However LPs seem to be somewhat back in fashion for some reason. I still have some LPs from the 70s and 80s but have no record player to play them on. This technology reminds me of the song that came out in the late 70s, Video killed the Radio Star. “Video killed the radio star. It’s in my mind and in my car. We can’t rewind, we’ve gone too far. Pictures came and broke your heart. So put all the blame on VCR”. It would now seem “put all the blame on” Blu-ray. It just doesn’t have the jingle that “Video killed the radio star” has. Things have become so outdated in 40 years. It is amazing how far the technology has come. It makes me feel old. I suppose I am not getting any younger. I don’t get depressed about age. When I listen to 70s and 80s music, I reminisce. It takes me back to my childhood and beyond. I love that good music. The 60s music just before I was born makes me think of Dylan’s The Times They are A Changin’ which they most certainly were. “Come writers and critics that prophesise with your pen, keep your eyes for the time won’t come again” and “Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don’t criticise if you don’t understand”. I am that writer. I prophesise with my pen. And you hear me Father, don’t criticise what you can’t understand. Bob Dylan told them this but did they really listen? I think not. Bloody Baby Boomers. They are a dying breed now. Literally and figuratively speaking. I remember distinctly as a child that life was much harder than it is today. I wanted to fit in. Now I don’t care if I fit in. Now I think screw you. I don’t need to please you. Once upon a time I was concerned with my Father’s criticism. Now I couldn’t give a hoot. I am who I am and I make no apologies for it now. I used to. When my parents would argue I’d feel as though somehow it was my fault for not being good enough. Now I know it was my parents. They

111

denied that they argued. I too got into abusive relationships with people who argued. Now as time goes on, I don’t have the time for arguments and fights anymore. I just think that it is all too easy to fall into that trap of blame and placate. I placate to no one and I most certainly don’t blame. There is no use for it. It is bullshit. I think that I’ve come into that time of my life that I just want to enjoy good company and leave behind the woes of my childhood. In a way, I feel I was robbed of a childhood. I was always expected to act more mature than I was. Emotional regulation was regarded as mature by my parents, but I was a depressed child. Not clinically depressed. Just lonely and starved of attention by my peers. It would now seem that I am one of the few in my school who is doing a PhD. In fact, I can’t name one other. I don’t know why this should be the case but it is. Mainly because they are too busy churning out children and working menial jobs which I have no interest in. If that satisfies you then do what you must. I am a writer and can’t divorce myself from the fact. I know that you are thinking that all writers are crazy but you are wrong. You don’t know anything. Don’t talk about what you don’t understand. I was talking to Amelie when I was drunk and told her that I found her attractive. She said: “No offense, but you would fuck anything”. I asked her what she meant by that and was highly offended to find out that she thought of me as some kind of slut. I was insulted. I don’t just “fuck anything” I have to be attracted to the person and their personality first. It was not as though I was going to have some kind of sexual relationship with her. She is monogamous. I am for the most part but she’s gay and wouldn’t involve Mike that is for sure. Mike mentioned in passing that we could sleep with her if I chose to. I explained to him that she doesn’t have heterosexual leanings at all. I think it is all the same to Mike. It isn’t though. People are attracted to what they are attracted to and you can’t change someone’s sexual desires to suit your own. It doesn’t work that way. I sleep with men and women and everything in between. That doesn’t make me a slut does it? Or at least I hope not. I don’t expect you to understand my position. You don’t live my life. That is it. I am pansexual. I am not fussed on someone’s sexual preference or sexual identity. It is the person that I fall for. I told Amelie that I really fancied

112

her and that if I wasn’t in a relationship with Mike, I’d ask her out on a date. She laughed. I was hurt. It was although she didn’t find me good enough. I told her that she was being insulting. I said that perhaps we shouldn’t maintain contact. She expressed that I did irritate her most of the time and that she didn’t really care. I said to her that she was a selfish individual. She said: “It took you that long to work it out. Yes I am.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I had liked her for a long time and just realised how deluded and foolish I’d been. I said to her: “That’s it, get the fuck out of flat. I don’t want to see you again. You are using me. You are selfish and don’t give a fuck about others feelings and I don’t need that in my life. It would have been better if I had terminated contact with you when you first stood me up. What the fuck was I thinking?” Then I slapped her. She said nothing and the smile was erased from her face. She became red in the face and looked like a bull running toward a red flag. I thought I didn’t need this after all I had done for her. I couldn’t believe that I had slapped her and I remained in shock. I repeated myself: “Get the fuck out of my flat!” She paused raising her hand to the affected bit of skin on her face and I screamed out: “Now!” She grabbed her bag in a huff and left slamming the door behind her. What had I done? I used violence. I was so frustrated and a tear welled in my eye. I don’t know why. Why should I care? She shouldn’t mean anything. After all what she has done to me – she shouldn’t. There is that word that I don’t believe in “shouldn’t”. I was conflicted and didn’t know what to think. I had to have a second cyst removed. How was I going to afford this? I’d been there for Amelie and Bethany when they had no food. Now I was going to have to use my credit card to get the procedure done because I had been too busy feeding leaches. I don’t know if a bleeding heart is a wise thing to have. Mike described me as a bleeding heart lefty. Perhaps he was right. I told Mike about Amelie. I was too proud to admit that I needed money. He somehow knew and said: “I’ll pay for your procedure”. My heart melted. He said that cared about me even Amelie didn’t. I think that he knew that she owed me money. I think he sees right through Bethany as she is as transparent as glass. I said to Mike: “Why do you care so much?” He explained that that was

113

the nature of things. He said even though he enjoyed the threesomes with me that I was more to him than a way of getting pussy. I actually appreciated that. I didn’t know what to think about him paying for my procedure. He explained that I had covered meals for him enough times and that real humanitarians would pay back out of sense of justice. I said to him that he was no humanitarian and he explained that he was not at all selfish. He said: “I give you moonshine for free and you feed me. There is some kind of pay off. Don’t concern yourself with those that use you.” I was thinking of what I’d been doing for last thirty-eight years, I thought of you, Dad. Yes, you, the “you” I have been speaking to all this time. You just don’t listen. You refuse to. You don’t understand. Why do you see me as a baby possum that must cling to its parent? I don’t need you. I left home at sixteen for a reason and I moved the hell out of your state. I got sick of living in Mother’s shadow. I was thinking of Judy Small’s “Reflections”. The song states: “And now I’ve come home in this hot dry December, you’re old and you’re dying and you can’t hurt me now. I will not let you think that I cannot remember, the pain, the fear and the mirror. So how does it feel to be looking at me Dad to know I remember in every detail? But I want you to know that this woman you see Dad can look without fear in the mirror. And you? Can you look in the mirror?” So Dad, can you look in the mirror? I wonder. I now can. This song states the daughter visiting her father on his deathbed. You won’t see me. Mother saw me and that was hell. I won’t let myself go through the same hell again. You won’t be coming to my graduation. I won’t see you on your deathbed, because you cannot even spare the time to see your own daughter when she does make an effort. “I shattered the mirrors reflections of you!” Goodbye, Brisbane. I am not coming back. Mike has been thinking about what he’s been doing for the last forty- two years. He’s really afraid. I see fear in his eyes. He told me to come back and sit next him last night when I was about to retire to bed. “Come back, come back I want to talk to you. This is serious.” He went on to tell me about his high school reunion and told me about he’d been having dreams about dying lately. He told me he felt depressed. I didn’t know what to do. I simply told him that if

114

he needs someone to talk to he has me. Then I thought of that song by Paul Simon “Obvious Child”. I remember the verse word for word. I just said to him to listen. I sang that verse. “Sonny sits by his window and thinks to himself how strange that some rooms are likes cages. Sonny’s year book from high school is down from the shelf and he idly thumbs through the pages. Some have died. Some have fled from themselves. Or struggled from here to get there. Sonny wanders beyond his interior walls. Runs his hand through his thinning brown hair.” Then I said: “Simon is addressing identity, what shaped it, and how you eventually come to terms with who you are. You have spent your whole life trying to be something – but hang on wait, you are something! No need to be depressed. Life is a mirage of patterns and the pattern never alters until the rat dies. Think of what you have become rather than what is before you.” He seemed surprised as to my insight. I told him that I too have had such thoughts. I might die in two months. Or I might take my own life. I don’t know. Who knows? But we all die. Mike and I were discussing what I’d do next. I was about to graduate from PhD and to say the least I am a little afraid about what comes next. I have been a student for ten years. Will I make it out there in the hard cold capitalist society? What do I do next? I could marry but I’d lose my identity and heaven knows that I don’t want that. I stopped contacting Bethany as Mike had suggested. It has been six months and I haven’t heard from her. Not even so much as a “Hello” on facebook. Mike said that he wasn’t surprised. He told me that she only wanted to talk to me when it suited her and that Amelie was the same. I suppose that he may have been right. I don’t know. I missed Amelie and I missed Bethany. Michel is still in my life. We are going to the theatre together this Tuesday. Black Death and I have since become closer. I said to Black Death the other night, “I am poor. Can you shout me a soft drink ?” He seemed happy to do so. I have to do something about my financial situation. I have to go out and get a job. I am sick of being a poor starving student. There has to be a better existence than this. Mike told me to write. I said that I couldn’t afford to support myself and he said: “Don’t become a slave for the government! You will never truly be happy. Do what you do best. Write. Even

115

though I am sick of your obsession with L’Etranger, Meursault wouldn’t be dictated to by the government. He wouldn’t give up what was natural to him. Nor should you.” I think that Mike has a point. That is it. I need to write for without it life loses meaning. I am Meursault. I am an outsider. I refuse to accept God. I am not willing to lie to fit your conventions or save myself from your ridicule. I feel detached from society. I am unconventional. This is who I am. Whether I am loved or hated doesn’t really matter in the scheme of things. You will think of me what you choose to think. What is the formula for happiness? I don’t believe there is one. I know you seem to think there is. My moods are dictated by that of nature. That is nature and that is the way things are. I don’t care. I don’t care what you think. I am who I am. It would seem as it were that my life is on trial. The gothic convention does not really accept me and there is a certain degree of pretentiousness in it. They refuse to accept me because I refuse to play their game. I am an outcast, amongst outcasts, a human being that has been stigmatised. I am an existential skeleton, a meat sack who thinks. I thought for a moment about Shakespeare that I did in my undergrad: “To be or not to be, that is the question”. I haven’t decided. You know what it says in the Christian bible: “Man’s fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless.” Ecclesiastes 3:19. Just as the black hole exists, so do I. I am a million atoms. The black hole is nothingness. For this brief lifetime, I am an existential skeleton, I am what you hate. I die and I am nothing.

116

Afterword – references in Existential Skeleton

Pages 2, 22, 65, 68, 116: Camus, A. (1942). The Outsider. London: Hamish Hilton, 1982. (First published in French as L’Etranger, 1942.)

Page 3: Miller, F. (Director). (2005) Sin City [Video]. Austin: Troublemaker Films/Dimension Films.

Page 4: Baha’u’llah. (1990). Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah. Willmette, IL: Baha’i Publishing Trust, p.346.

Page 4: Bellamy, M. (2003). “Thoughts of a Dying Atheist”. Absolution [CD], Muse. Berlin: Taste Media Ltd.

Pages 6, 7, 18, 19, 27, 51: Fincher, D. (Director). (1999). Fight Club [Video]. Los Angeles: Fox 2000 Pictures.

Page 7: Jones, T. (Director). (1979). Life of Brian [Video]. London: HandMade Films.

Page 7: Simon, P. (1964). “A Most Peculiar Man”. The Sounds of Silence [CD], Simon & Garfunkel. New York: The Columbia Studio Recordings.

Pages 7, 22: Smith, R., Dempsey, M. and Tolhurst, L. (1984). “Killing an Arab”. Standing on a Beach [CD], The Cure. UK: Fiction Records.

Page 14: Finn, N. (1988). “Into Temptation”. Temple of Low Men [CD], Crowded House. Los Angeles and Melbourne: Capitol.

Page 21: Stoker, B. (1897). Dracula. New York: Clydesdale Press, 2018.

117

Page 21: Shelley, M. (1818). Frankenstein. London: Pan Books, 1994.

Pages 22, 94: Simon, P. (1965). “I Am a Rock”. Leaves That Are Green [CD], Simon & Garfunkel. Unknown: CBS.

Page 26: Sanders, D. and Wong, S. (2014). Status Room. Perth: The Blue Room Theatre.

Page 28: Cox, G. (2012). The Existentialist’s Guide to Death, the Universe, and Nothingness. London & New York: Continuum International Publishing Group.

Page 34: McCubbin, R. (2015). The Bookbinder. Perth: The Blue Room Theatre.

Page 36: Orwell, G. (1945). Animal Farm. London: Secker and Warburg.

Page 36: Garret, P., Hirst, R. and Moginie, J. (1987). “Beds are Burning”. Diesel and Dust [CD], Midnight Oil. Melbourne: Albert Studios.

Page 37: Jackson, M. (1982). “Wanna be startin’ Somethin’”. History [CD]. Los Angeles: Epic Records Group, 1995.

Page 37: Jackson, M. (1982). “Earth Song”. History [CD]. Los Angeles: Epic Records Group, 1995.

Page 38: Dawkins, R. (2006). The God Delusion. Great Britain: Black Swan.

Page 38: Lennon, J. (1971). “Imagine”. Imagine [CD]. New York: Ascot Sound Studios.

118

Page 38: Paine, T. (1794). The Age of Reason: Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge Library Collection.

Page 38: Hunter, T. and Pigott, J. (1988). “Age of Reason”. Age of Reason [CD], John Farnham. Melbourne: Sony BMG.

Page 38: Jackson, M. (1995). “They Don’t Care About Us”. History [CD]. Los Angeles: Epic Records Group, 1995.

Page 39: Jackson, M. and Bottrell, B. (1991). “Black or White”. History [CD], Michael Jackson. Los Angeles: Epic Records Group, 1995.

Pages 41, 42, 106: Jackson, M. and Richie, L. (1985). “We Are the World”. Free Sin [CD], USA For Africa. Los Angeles: A & M Recording Studios, 1995.

Pages 41, 42: Garret, P., Hirst, R. and Moginie, J. et al. (1990). “Blue Sky Mine”. Blue Sky Mining [CD], Midnight Oil. Sydney: Columbia.

Pages 41, 42: Thompson, C. et al. (1986). “You’re the Voice”. Whispering Jack [CD], John Farnham. Australia: Sony BMG.

Page 43: LaBute, N. (2015). Mercy Seat. Perth: The Blue Room Theatre.

Page 51: Mendes, S. [Director]. (1999). American Beauty. [Video]. California: DreamWorks Pictures.

Page 54: Kershner, I. [Director]. (1980). The Empire Strikes Back [Video]. San Francisco: Lucasfilm.

Page 56: Sting and Knopfler, M. (1985). “Money for Nothing”. Brothers in Arms [CD], Dire Straits. Burbank, CA: Warner Bros.

119

Page 57: Paich, D. and Porcaro, J. (1982). “Africa”. Toto IV [CD], Toto. Los Angles: Sunset Studios & Ocean Way Studios.

Page 57: Hay, C. (1980). “Down Under”. Business as Usual [CD], Men At Work. Sydney: Columbia.

Page 59: Brothers, The. (1987). “When will I be Famous?” Push [CD], Bros. London: CBS.

Page 60: Hay, C. (1981). “Who Could It Be Now?”. Business as Usual [CD], Men At Work. Sydney: Columbia.

Page 60: Robison, E. A. (1987). “Richard Cory”. Children of the Night. Unknown: Project Gutenberg.

Page 61: Simon, P. (1964). “Richard Cory”. The Sounds of Silence [CD], Simon & Garfunkel. New York: The Columbia Studio Recordings.

Pages 64, 65: Smith, F. et al. (2008). “Camus”. Amber Contains the Sun: A Poetry Anthology. Perth: Department of Culture & the Arts, p.41.

Page 66: Simon, P. (1964). “The Sounds of Silence”. The Sounds of Silence [CD], Simon & Garfunkel. New York: The Columbia Studio Recordings.

Page 68: Simon, P. (1964). “Blessed”. The Sounds of Silence [CD], Simon & Garfunkel. New York: The Columbia Studio Recordings.

Pages 71, 74: Marynard, K. (1996). “Eulogy”. Aenima [CD], Tool. Los Angeles: Zoo Entertainment.

120

Page 71: Cawthorne, N. (2002). The World’s Greatest Cults. England: Chancellor Press.

Pages 72, 74: Yunupingu, M. et al. (1991). “Treaty”. Tribal Voice [CD], Yothu Yindi. Australia: Mushroom.

Page 73: Marie, B.S. (1964). “Universal Soldier”. It’s My Way. [LP]. Malvern: Vanguard.

Page 75: Garret, P. et al. (1990). “Blue Sky Mine”. Blue Sky Mining [CD], Midnight Oil. Sydney: Columbia.

Page 75: Williamson, J. (1989). “Dingo”. Warragul [CD]. Australia: Fable.

Page 75: Egan, T. (1989). “The Drover’s Boy”. Warragul [CD], John Williamson. Australia: Fable.

Page 76: Williamson, J. (1989). “Rip, Rip, Woodchip”. Warragul [CD]. Australia: Fable.

Page 76: Shakespeare, W. (1736). The Tempest. The Works of Shakespeare. London: J. Tonson.

Pages 78-79: De Heer, R. (Director). (2002) The Tracker [Video]. Adelaide: Adelaide Festival of Arts.

Page 79: Noyce, P. [Director]. (2002). Rabbit Proof Fence [Video]. Adelaide: Rumbalara Films.

Pages 79, 80: Sen, I. [Director]. (2002). Beneath Clouds [Video]. Sydney: Australian Film Finance Corporation.

121

Page 83, 84: Madonna et al. (1984). “Material Girl”. Like a Virgin [CD], Madonna. Burbank, CA: Warner Bros.

Page 89: Peretti, H. et al (1993). “Can’t help Falling in Love”. Promises and Lies [CD], UB40. London: Virgin Records.

Page 106: Isaacs, C. (2015). Old Love. Perth: The Blue Room Theatre.

Page 111: Horn, T. (1980) “Video Killed the Radio Star”. The Age of Plastic. [CD], The Buggles. Manchester: Island Records.

Page 111: Dylan, B. (1964). “The Times they are A-Changin’”. The Times They are A-Changin’. [CD]. New York: Colombia Records.

Page 114: Small, J. (1997). “Reflections”. More than Skin Deep [CD], Toni Wood. Brisbane: Toni Wood.

Pages 114, 115,: Simon, P. (1990). “Obvious Child”. The Rhythm of the Saints [CD], Paul Simon. Burbank, CA: Warner Bros.

Page 116: Shakespeare, W. (1736). Hamlet. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. London and New York: Nelson Doubleday, 1974.

Page 116: Holy Bible: The Revised Version. London: Oxford University Press, 1964.

122

EXEGESIS

123

1 - INTRODUCTION

This research project is concerned with the experience of schizophrenia and representations of this condition. The main investigation of this subject has been carried out in the novel, Existential Skeleton, but the novel is supplemented by further material in this accompanying exegesis, which discusses my own experience and surveys relevant medical studies as well as other autobiographical works, before discussing the concept of autofiction which has underpinned my writing practice. Literary representations of schizophrenia constitute a limited and fragmented field of partial stories. Few literary works deal with those diagnosed with schizophrenia, and most of those that do consider this condition tend to view it historically (from the perspective of the 1960s and 1970s) and from the perspective of hospitalisation. But hospitalisation is only part of the “story” of schizophrenia; there is also the post-hospital experience of managing schizophrenia and living in the community as a schizophrenic. No coherent genre is as yet emerging in regard to post-hospitalisation, so this thesis uses my own experience-based knowledge – supplemented by research – to make a contemporary contribution towards this emerging field.

My Experience of Schizophrenia

My interest in schizophrenia derives from my own experience of the disorder. I experienced symptoms of schizophrenia long before I was diagnosed in 2007. When I was at night school, before attending university in 2004, I developed a fancy for a particular person and I felt that we had a special connection. That connection was an apparently delusional thought as I believed we were able to communicate via telepathy. I remember one day in biology class trying to concentrate on my study and experiencing a thought

124

injection which sounded like this particular person’s voice saying “I love you”. I remember thinking that I could project my voice back in my own head at this person to reply, “Not now, I am trying to concentrate”. These are just two examples of what I was experiencing. I also remember that I became obsessed with the Bah’ai religion as an explanation of this delusional state; I thought that God must have given me some sort of gift and these delusions of grandeur led to me believing that I had the power of prophesy. I entered the Bah’ai religion as a result of my mental state and because that particular person was Bah’ai. The members of the Bah’ai faith were very welcoming of me and they said that I was very pure, but I knew that I was really mixed up. When I read more about the religion and its rules I found it increasingly hard to be a part of this delusional state. I obtained a place in Edith Cowan University in 2005, to study Writing and English, which I later changed to majors in Writing and History. I had been in a state of elation thanks to my delusions of grandeur from the previous year, but whilst in First Year I found that the elation left me and I became increasingly depressed. Although my grades were good, I did a unit called “Interpersonal Skills” and I found it hard to deal with some of the content of this unit. I was also not able to see eye to eye with the unit’s lecturer, which led to a very difficult six months; I would often leave the class crying because of these difficulties and I had other ailments. My health was poor so turning up to the class was challenging, but this was a requirement otherwise you would fail the unit. My mother was becoming increasingly ill and I suspect that the worry about her was manifesting in my depressive state. I started writing a lot of dark poetry and plastering it all over the walls of my hallway; this was a sign that I was really starting to lose my faculties as I had never before done this. This wall of poetry I named “The wall of pain” and to this day I have no understanding of the compulsion to stick up depressing poetry on my wall. I do remember, though, that “The wall of pain” externalised my feelings and gave me objective input into what I was feeling. It would be too simple to say there was a complete breaking point for me. It was inching in on me bit by bit, but in retrospect I would say the turning

125

point was my mother’s death in 2006, when I could no longer process normal emotions as I had been doing with “The wall of pain”. When my mother died it was as though my feelings of grandeur and depression transformed into a state of “numbness”. I was unsure why I didn’t cry when I found out the horrible news about my mother being on her deathbed. I now know that this loss of feeling was the first of what is known as the negative symptoms of schizophrenia. Rosen et al (1984) state: The diagnosis of schizophrenia has emphasized primarily the positive symptoms of the disorder (hallucinations, delusions, formal thought disorder, and bizarre behaviour) and less commonly the negative symptoms (avolition, apathy, alogia, and anhedonia). Thus, recent research in schizophrenia has relied on diagnostic systems that require the presence of at least one positive symptom for confirmation of the diagnosis.... Of late, however, there has been a resurgence of interest in negative symptoms. (p. 277) This loss of feeling I was experiencing was in fact connected with my mother’s death. The positive symptoms which indicated that I was in psychosis were triggered by a different incident which occurred in 2007. The year after my mother died, my partner and I moved into a one bedroom flat above a government housing unit. I knew the girl downstairs because I had been involved with her through my previous partner. We reconnected and spent time together, however she was very inconsiderate. As a result of her playing loud music late at night, I couldn’t concentrate on my studies or sleep and I was becoming increasingly exhausted. I sent her a text message asking her to keep her music down and then she smashed in my lounge-room window – an action which led me to become very paranoid. This is when I experienced what I was later led to understand to have been my first psychotic break: I soon believed that this girl had tapped my phone, had placed cameras in my flat, and I heard her voice talking about me and thought she had sent drug cartels after me and that the mafia was somehow involved with a plot against my life. My boyfriend

126

and I put a restraining order on the girl and decided to move, but that is when life became even more unstable. My boyfriend’s family started to help with the move but when I spent time with them I was in quite a state and started covering the windows with wardrobes to stop x-rays and gamma rays infiltrating my body and I noticed what I thought were cameras in the room and became frightened that I was being watched. One morning I took a knife to myself and felt unsafe to the point where I called the police to take me to the nearest psychiatric hospital (where my partner’s mother then worked). I was not admitted, but was given a tranquiliser and suddenly felt better – and at that point I knew something was wrong with my faculties, as how could a pill make me feel calm? Events at this time happened very quickly, and a lot of my memory of this period is blurry; when someone is in psychosis things become very blurry and often details like dates and places are forgotten. The mention of my partner’s mother is important, as it alludes to another set of circumstances which contributed in a significant (if perhaps less major way) to my eventual psychotic breakdown and diagnosis. My partner’s family at the time had much disdain for me and didn’t like me one bit. I remember feeling great anxiety socially when dealing with them as they were very conformist and I didn’t feel I could be myself. Feeling this extreme social anxiety (whenever members of this family were around), I started to become withdrawn. Every time my partner went down to see his family, I’d avoid going for fear that I was going to be criticised. I felt a great need to be strong and have a stiff upper lip as my Dad had taught me, but it was becoming incredibly hard to do this, now that I was divorced from my emotions. Returning to my blurry recollections, I know that I was treated with tranquilisers and eventually sent to Royal Perth Hospital where I was diagnosed. My feelings became intellectualised rather than heartfelt after I received treatment. Apparently, the loss of feelings and flat affect is very common with people who suffer schizophrenia. The medications helped my fears and delusions but not my connections with my emotions. This was for a period of

127

a couple of years, from 2007-2009. It was then that I realised that I would have to accept the divorce from emotion, and live according to my moral principles and my head rather than by empathically feeling. So the year after my mother’s death was the time my psychotic breakdown occurred and with a lack of support from my partner, and with my father living too far away to be able to do anything, my state worsened before it got better. (But this was only because I needed to find the treatment that seemed to work best for me.) At the time I was diagnosed, I lacked a lot of support and my father and step-mother found me hard to understand. This was not helped by the fact that I did not understand myself and that my psychosis (which was full of delusion) felt utterly real to me, making it hard to distinguish between fantasy and reality. Now, in the present, I have a fairly firm grasp on the real world but that has come with a lot of counselling from a psychologist, which has helped me move forward more than the medications have. By accepting my thoughts and feelings as they are and looking at them objectively, I have learned how to again create the meaning in my life which had been stripped away from me through psychosis and medical treatment. Medication helped deal with positive symptoms of psychosis with only a little relapse, but “acceptance/commitment” therapy, mindfulness and “cognitive behavioural” therapy – all principles that psychiatrists could not teach me – have helped me interact again in a social world. This has come with years of seeing a regular psychologist and learning how to conduct myself appropriately. It has been an ongoing struggle from 2007-2018, but through intellectualising things and living to a moral code, my sense of self-satisfaction and accomplishment has come back. I feel pleased with myself instead of frustrated that I was not empathetic enough or not connecting emotionally. I realise that there is much more to life than connecting the dots and living in an emotional state. The process of psychology and psychiatry keep me from sliding backwards so that I am now functioning well.

Personal Experience of Emotional Blunting

128

During the period when I was medicated on anti-psychotics I did a lot of reading on schizophrenia and I came to realise that I was suffering from what is called “emotional blunting” or “flat affect” (sometimes also called “blunted affect”). This condition is described by these three terms, which are effectively interchangeable, each referring to the dysfunction of emotional expression and emotional experience. Henry et al (2007) explain that these abnormalities in affect “are well documented in schizophrenia” (p.197). They state that blunted affect is one of the most common abnormalities in schizophrenia which affects the emotional expressivity and emotional experience of schizophrenic individuals. A study such as “Dissociation of Affect Recognition and Mood State from Blunting in Patients with Schizophrenia” (Sweet et al [1998]) concludes that “The capacity for emotional expressiveness may dissociate from the ability to recognize and experience emotions among patients with schizophrenia” (p.304) and notes that “The results of this study are consistent with other studies that have reported a dissociation between the dimensions of emotional expression and experience in schizophrenic patients” (p.305). Sweet et al argue that, whilst they themselves have not formed a conclusion on the matter, “one conceptualisation is that blunting … could be explained as specific brain dysfunction” (p.307). Whichever term is used, emotional blunting is one of the negative symptoms of schizophrenia and further research has yet to be done in this area, especially in relation to the more extreme positive experiences such as hallucinations, voices or delusions.* Emotional blunting means, in essence, that you know how you feel about something in your head, but can't find it in your heart. It leaves you feeling as if you don't care about anything anymore – as if you have no emotions toward things you used to care about. Gur et al (2006) state that ______* See for example Cascella et al (2011), Ito et al (2013), A. Kreinin (2013), and Mueser et all (1990).

129

Impaired emotional functioning is fundamental to schizophrenia, and negative symptoms, including flat affect, are debilitating and resistant to intervention. Studies of first- episode patients demonstrate that flat affect is present at the onset of illness and is more evident in men than in women. Flat affect, assessed clinically based on emotional expressivity, has also been reported in laboratory studies with reduced facial expression during social interactions, emotional films, and cartoons. (p.1) Flat effect or emotional blunting is a typical negative symptom that medication cannot improve and the person has to accept the nature of it in order to be content (Aleman et al [2017]; Rabinowitz [2018]). However, such feelings give rise to suicidal thoughts at times. It is fair to say, that suicidal ideation is greatly impacted by emotion.

Suicidal Ideation and Self-harm

If one feels apathetic because of emotional blunting then a sense of hopelessness will be likely to overcome the sufferer, and I know with myself I felt there was little to live for when the sense of feeling was taken from me. This hopelessness leads to the thought that oblivion might be better than just merely existing in the world because others want you to. People desire emotional connections to other people and when this was taken from me, I felt robbed of my life and emotion because I ceased to care about anything. I once said to someone with schizotypal personality disorder (a form of schizoid disorder similar to schizophrenia) that she would need to come to terms with not feeling as intensely as she once did. She said to me that it was not merely enough to exist, she wanted to live life with its full array of emotions. Bressert (2017) explains that schizotypal personality disorder is characterized by someone who has great difficulty in establishing and maintaining close relationships with others. A person with schizotypal personality disorder may have

130

extreme discomfort with such relationships, and therefore have less of a capacity for them. Someone with this disorder usually has cognitive or perceptual distortions as well as eccentricities in their everyday behavior. I explained to this friend that I too was devoid of intense emotion but when I came to accept it, I was better able to create my own meaning and appreciate what little emotion I did have. (The only emotion I could feel under my general blanket of apathy would be mild irritation at my own apathy. My experience of humour was restricted to the ultra-absurd, and only a lingering enthusiasm for music kept me going.) Understandably, the impact of emotional blunting can lead to suicidal ideation (stated simply, the imagining or mental envisaging of suicide) and/or actual self-harm, and these are issues that require discussion. Self-harm is not something that necessarily leads to suicidal ideation, let alone actual suicide. Self-harm is usually done to bring physical pain to the individual because the sufferer does not know how to express their emotions properly and productively. The Beyond Blue website states that [m]any young people describe self-harm as a way of coping with feeling numb, or intense pain, distress or unbearable negative feelings, thoughts or memories. They are trying to change how they feel by replacing their emotional pain or pressure with physical pain. Some people harm themselves because they feel alone, and hurting themselves is the only way they feel real or connected. Others self-harm to punish themselves due to feelings of guilt or shame or to “feel again”. For most young people self-harm is a coping mechanism, not a suicide attempt. Although someone who suffers schizophrenia can be a self-harmer and can also lean towards suicidal thoughts, this has not been the case for me. On occasion I have been very impatient with self-harmers because I have seen it as a form of attention-seeking or guilt-tripping, which of course is not the case for most. I have never self-harmed nor seen a reason to do so, but I have not

131

been devoid of suicidal ideation. I used to think of suicide a lot because my life was stripped of meaning and emotion, however, I did not feel pain that needed to be expressed physically. Knowing what suicide does to those family and friends still living, I have decided this is not an option and have opted to create meaning out meaninglessness. I believe that one can create their own meaning and this helps with the hopelessness otherwise experienced and that forming bonds with people no matter how distant one may feel emotionally helps toward curing the flat affect.

Psychosis

Another key facet of schizophrenia is psychosis, an extreme sensory experience which can affect all five senses. If you smell, see and feel the warmth of a fire you perceive it to be real even if it is not there. An interesting affect of schizophrenia is that the senses can trick the brain into believing there is a fire when there is not one, and feelings of danger and self-preservation become dominant. Liken this to something supposedly meaningful like receiving messages from God and feeling somehow you are chosen to fill a mission. If that were taken from you, through the use of medication to somehow make you “better”, you may not want to accept that feeling of being ordinary in an ordinary world. This is an example of how I felt when I became medicated: I had to make sense of a world that I was not used to. I told the Doctors and they seemed dismissive of my plight. I remember that when I was in psychosis I felt a strong sense of meaning but when medicated it all went away. I soon fell into an abyss of depression because of this and the suicidal ideation came. When I worked on my thought processes I realised that I could again feel contentment. Even though it was not a strong feeling of happiness, it was far from feeling apathetic about everything.

132

Schizophrenic Thought-processes

Disorganisation of thoughts and speech is a common symptom with schizophrenia, and I chose to particularly reflect this in my protagonist. Klingler and Johnson and Williams state that many of their studies of schizophrenic thought-processes are “based on the premise that schizophrenic thinking is illogical, impaired, and unwitting. It is believed that ... [it] assesses the ability to think logically and to avoid irrelevant or distracting associations” (1977, p.658). More recent studies continue to bear this out – for example, Olivier et al (2017) observe that “Thought disorder and visual-perceptual deficits in schizophrenia have been well described in the literature” (p.1) and Bhuyan, Chaudhury, Saikia (2017) state that “Given that psychiatric disorders involve higher levels of mental processing, it is the rule, rather than the exception, that psychiatric disorders will affect different high‐level processes, producing alterations in language, belief, thought, perception, and emotion in different individuals” (p.69). In my experience, too, this is certainly true for the schizophrenic train of thought. The thought-processes of the schizophrenic may seem “illogical” or “impaired” to outsiders, but they are based in the patient’s own logic whereby seemingly irrelevant associations become important and meaningful. In my own experience, I had a number of loose associations making up meaningful narrative in my own head and it all made sense to me at the time, though no one else. Roche et al observe that formal thought disorder affects speech in the psychotic individual. They state that “given the association between positive [formal thought disorder] and social functioning, a persistent course of the disorganisation dimension would be predictive of poorer social functioning” (2016, p.30). This is most certainly a symptom of my formal thought disorder whereby I had trouble functioning in social situations due to schizophrenic thought-processes. As will be discussed later in this exegesis, the protagonist of Existential Skeleton has been crafted to display a number of symptoms of formal thought disorder. Despite medication, this type of schizophrenic

133

thought-process did not go away for me and it is my intention in the novel to demonstrate this difficulty.

Music, Meaning, Identity

After being medicated for some time I came to the realisation that I needed to create my own meaning in life, and in order to do this I needed to write. I believed that, through education and discussing schizophrenia in Existential Skeleton, meaning could once again be created. Through creating meaning, I found a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, and my self- esteem increased even further when I began to isolate schizophrenia from my identity of myself as a person. Identity and mental illness are different: though schizophrenia can affect my perceptions, identity remains unscathed, which is relieving to me. I am not a schizophrenic but rather “a person living with schizophrenia”. After my diagnosis in 2007 I felt a sense of acceptance of myself. I had previously started to think there must be something ultimately wrong with me as a person, but when I came to realise that schizophrenia was a treatable disease like epilepsy or diabetes, it lifted the self-blame I used to put on myself. To separate myself from schizophrenia is one of the most liberating things I can think of; it allows me to think of myself as an individual with certain personality traits who suffers a debilitating disorder which makes you question who you are. In order to separate identity from illness it is important to understand the concept of identity. Fearon speaks of identity in a way which accords with my own views, suggesting that “questions of ‘identity’ mark numerous arguments on gender, sexuality, nationality, ethnicity” (1999, p.2). This fluid, multi-faceted account of identity best explains the sense of ‘identity’ which I myself have formed is the concept of identity to which I subscribe – the idea that identity is created by a fluid interplay between a person’s gender, sexuality, nationality and culture. I am a woman; I am pansexual; and I am a first generation Australian. When I was being raised I was exposed to a series of different

134

cultures – from the Bahamas, England, and Australia – and my culture is, unsurprisingly, a mixture of those crucial influences. I struggle internally against my father's stereotypically British ‘stiff-upper-lip’ attitude (having once been very prone to emotion), but my humour is typically British; I embrace the egalitarian attitude that is said to be ‘quintessentially’ Australian, yet I reject the ‘quintessentially Aussie’ focus on sport and I thoroughly enjoy calypso music. I have found music in general to be important in helping me to retain a focus on this core identity that is available to me; I would go so far as to say that music “saved my life”. I could not connect with love-songs and break-up songs because their focus on emotional experience no longer resonated with me. Music like poetry is full of meanings and agendas to reach an audience, and the love/hate dichotomy drives many songs invoking an emotional response. I found that I did not achieve this emotional response and turned toward lyrics that were representative of social justice and political meaning. I said earlier that I formed aspects of my identity around socio-political issues; I find that I do not “fit in” socially so I choose to fight for minorities such as those with mental illness or other differences such as sexual identity or race. (Thus I connect with Michael Jackson’s song “Black or White”, for example, because I disagree with the black/white dichotomy.) Songs about social issues are (to me, anyway) expressions of concern and caring – whether it be for minorities, or for the environment, or for justice – and whilst I may not feel that I “fit in”, I can feel that listening to these lyrics is like listening to strangers who are like- minded; it is a way of feeling less isolated and less marginalised. People are what they are and should be respected as such, rather than being expected to conform to external (and often inappropriate) expectations. I ultimately connect with this because I myself have been segregated by people for my sexuality and mental illness. I particularly took to songs about peace, environmentalism and activism, and through this I found a new meaning and sense of identity.

135

2 – MODERN LITERARY WORKS ABOUT SCHIZOPHRENIA

Hospitalisation as a Phase of Schizophrenic Experience

There are different stages of the schizophrenic experience and the most common sequence for people suffering the condition is hospitalisation, diagnosis, adaptation to medication, and life in the community. Many years ago, hospitalisation was long and protracted (eighteen months in the case of Susanna Kaysen, for example: 1967-1969, as seen from medical records on page 10 and 169 of Girl, Interrupted), but these days hospitalisation and diagnosis are often dealt with quickly and the person is returned to the community shortly after the medication becomes effective. Usami talks about a teenager’s admission into psychiatric hospital for OCD: “At the initial stage of hospitalization he showed distrust and doubt towards the therapist and hospital. He had little communication with other boys and did not express his feelings. Therefore, there was a period of time where he seemed to wonder whether he could trust the treatment staff or not” (2003, p.37). Someone suffering schizophrenia when first hospitalised can be confused and often believe their mental experiences to be real; this usually follows a period of distrust of the treatment (see Bressert 2017-a). When given a diagnosis and medication the patient needs to come to terms with the diagnosis and this can be followed by or include a period of denial, which is what I personally experienced. When I started reading about the condition I came to realise that I was presenting these symptoms known as schizophrenia, though I found it hard to believe that I had anything wrong with me. Only a limited number of literary works deal with schizophrenia, and most of these view the condition from the perspective of hospitalisation. That is, they look at only one facet of the experience; they do not look beyond this hospitalisation phrase to consider the experience of a person living in society and managing their schizophrenia (with medication) on a day-to-day basis.

136

Wood’s study, Life Writing and Schizophrenia: Encounters at the Edge of Meaning (2013), is a valuable recent survey of autobiography, biography, memoir and autobiographical fiction in relation to those suffering schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder (a combination of bipolar and schizophrenia). Wood’s work opens with hospital memoirs such as Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted and Frame’s autobiographical fictions Faces in the Water and Owls Do Cry, which were early but significant works on schizophrenic experience. They give a voice to the otherwise silenced mental patient. When suffering a psychotic break and being hospitalised, a schizophrenic’s voice is often not taken seriously and the story becomes about the psychiatric and medicalised opinion rather than the voice of the schizophrenic. To society in general the voice of the hospitalised schizophrenic is considered invalid and incoherent, but more recent practices and the work done by Wood are leading to discussions which attempt to reverse these attitudes. As Wood moves further forward she speaks about the first person accounts regularly published in Schizophrenia Bulletin. These accounts do give a voice to schizophrenics, but this is done more for the benefit of psychiatric research than for the support and reinforcement of the individuals dealing with their own experience. Wood tends to focus on those receiving hospitalisation and treatment. Hospitalised voices are important but (with the notable exceptions of works by Saks and others mentioned earlier), there is a real lack of post-hospitalised voices of those who suffer schizophrenia and who are now living and coping in the community. The hospitalisation narratives of Frame and others – and the immensely valuable study by Wood – are a starting-point from which a larger and wider narrative can emerge, giving voice to those in the post-hospitalisation phase of dealing with schizophrenia. I regard Existential Skeleton as an attempt to commence this wider narrative.

Janet Frame

Janet Frame’s work is very early in the history of medical treatment, when doctors and patients struggled with extreme symptoms and treatments

137

involved long periods of hospitalisation, ECT, and possible lobotomies. Frame was born as Nene Janet Paterson Clutha (1924-2004) and is one of the most highly-regarded of New Zealand’s literary figures. She is also important in relation to literary representations of schizophrenia, not least because of the extraordinary intersection between her schizophrenia and her writing: Frame was scheduled for a lobotomy that was cancelled when, just days before the procedure, her début publication of short stories was awarded a national literary prize (Martin [2004] p.23). Her first published novel, Owls Do Cry (1957), provides a representation of family and community views of schizophrenics and their behaviour through Frame’s rendition of how she thinks her sister and other members of her family might view her condition. It is a complex novel which considers its topic at one remove and in a manner which technically constitutes unreliable narration. For example, the passage quoted below ostensibly portrays the naïve bewilderment of a “normal” family member’s encounter with schizophrenia: January 22nd Hot weather still. The children are running around bare. I had a letter from Daphne today, the first for a long time. What a strange world she must be living in! Her letter does not make sense, it is a wonder the doctor let it be posted- all about Christmas and a piece of moon and a mouse nibbling at a shroud of sun, it frightens me, I can never see her getting better and living a normal life like myself. Poor Daphne. And she sends back the letter I wrote her, and has written the words Help help help at the end of my letter. (p.101) To avoid a naïve reading of this passage, one must remember that this is not the sister’s actual memoir but an imagining of how the sister might view the patient’s situation. In my view it is all the more poignant because this device is employed, since it renders the negative attitudes which inevitably flow from the schizophrenic’s isolation. Through the rendering of the sister’s responses and those of other narrative voices, Owls Do Cry suggests a view of what it might be like to be in the “strange world” of schizophrenia:

138

The long corridor outside shines like the leather of a new shoe that walks that walks upon itself in a ghost footstep upon its own shining until it reaches the room where the women wait, in night clothes, for the nine o’clock terror called electric shock treatment. They wear dressing gowns of red flannel, as if God or the devil had purchased a continent of cloth and walked, with scissors for stick, from coast to coast, to cut the dead mass pattern of madmen and women whose eyes will spring blind with sight of their world and the flag of cloth hung in the shape of sun across their only sky. Oh, but at nine o’clock, it is said, all will be well. Their seeing will be blinded, the shade replaced across their eyes to restrict their looking to their plate, their tea, their cigarette; in practice for the world; stopped like a house to look forever on its backyard. Hairclips have been taken from them and arranged in rows along the mantelpiece. Their teeth are sunk in handleless cups of luke-warm water, arranged in circles, for companionship, upon the bony-legged table. -Take your teeth out, the women in pink have commanded. Take your teeth out. And soon the same god or devil who walked the continent of cloth will turn the switch that commands-See. Forget. Go blind. Be convulsed and never know why. Take your teeth out as a precaution against choking, your eyes out, like Gloucester, to save you sight of the cliff and the greater gods who keep their “dreadful pother” above your head. Your life out as a precaution against living. And the women, submitting their teeth, their eyes, their lives, smile, embarrassed or mad in their world of mass red flannel. (p.45)

139

Once again, for this reader, the passage is deeply moving, not least because it is so clearly an attempt to describe the indescribable, as indicated by the chaotic mixing of realistic reportage-style description (“handleless cups of luke- warm water”) and grandiose metaphor (“god or devil”). The very fact that this is only an imagining of the patient’s plight makes that plight all the more unknowable and alienating by leaving room for the exercise of the reader’s imagination. Above all, the novel suggests the sheer helplessness and complete lack of agency of hospitalised schizophrenic patients undergoing extreme treatments such as electro-shock therapy: And God or the devil on the left, at the head of the raised bed that floats, chequered, like a shadow projected from the tethered real of some invisible globe of light. The doctor moves, carefully, as if he tiptoed between swords. He is guarding something. At first it seems his life. Then it is the machine, cream, with curved body and luminous eyes, one red, the dangerous eye, the other black for cancellation of impulse. He stands with his head resting lightly, it seems lightly, upon his treasure; the Daphne knows he dare not move his hand away from the voluptuous body of the red and black- eyed machine which, in case of escape, is fastened, as a lover secures the object of his love with cords of habit, circumstance, convenience, time, with the black charged cords, varicose, converging to a unity that is controlled by a switch, and pressure of the doctor’s own hand. -Turn on, my love, he will say, and reach for the switch, and caress the red luminous eye with his gentle hand. He looks at Daphne, as if she may have interrupted his pleasure, or as if he will communicate to her, then blot from knowing, the delight he feels in his lovely machine. -Climb up on the bed Daphne. (p.47)

140

The reader must remember that the imagery of authoritarianism and evil (“God or the devil”) is just an attempt to convey the reality of the patient’s experience; so too is the description of the “curved body and luminous eyes” of the “machine”. Whilst it is technically possible that the patient’s plight is not this bad, the reader surmises that is possibly worse – not least in being beyond summation in neat strands of imagery – and this in turn reinforces the alienation of the sufferer and their disconnection from normal human experience. In Faces in the Water (1961) - the first volume of what is now regarded as Frame’s three-volume “autobiography” – Frame again provides a narrative of hospitalisation: I will write about the season of peril. I was put in hospital because a great gap opened in the ice floe between myself and other people whom I watched, with their world, drifting away through violet-coloured sea where hammerhead sharks in tropical ease swam side by side with the seals and the polar bears. I was alone on the ice. A blizzard came and I grew numb and wanted to lie down and sleep and I would have done so had not the strangers arrived with scissors and cloth bags filled with lice and red-labeled bottles of poison, and other dangers which I had not realized before – mirrors, cloaks, corridors, furniture, square inches, bolted lengths of silence – plain and patterned, free samples of voice. And the strangers, without speaking, put up circular calico tents and camped with me, surrounding me with their merchandize of peril. (Frame 1961, p.10) Here once again Frame conveys the gulf that opens between the schizophrenic and the outside world (and their own past life), and I would suggest that the metaphor of cold isolation might hint at experiences of flat affect. Faces in the Water repeatedly uses the sense of cold in connection with the isolation and horrors of hospitalisation, especially in times when electro- shock therapy was in use:

141

I was cold. I tried to find a pair of long woollen ward socks to keep my feet warm in order that I should not die under the new treatment, electric shock therapy, and have my body sneaked out the back way to the mortuary. Every morning I woke up in dread, waiting for the day nurse to go on her rounds and announce from the list of names in her hand whether or not I was for shock treatment, the new fashionable means of quietening people and making them realize that orders are to be obeyed and floors are to be polished without anyone protesting and faces are to be fixed into smiles and weeping is a crime. Waiting in the early morning, in black-capped frosted hours, was like waiting for the pronouncement of a death sentence. I tried to remember the incidents of the day before. Had I wept? Had I refused to obey an order from one of the nurses? Or, becoming upset at the sight of a very ill patient, had I panicked, and tried to escape? Had a nurse threatened, “If you don’t take care you’ll be for treatment tomorrow?” (Frame [1961] p.15) As a reader especially empathetic to this account, it is appalling to see the candid fear of “a death sentence” linked with self-blame and frantic attempts to identify some form of wrongful behaviour (“Had I refused to obey an order…?”) which can henceforth be avoided. Elsewhere the narrator records the “sick dread” of the inmates as they watch “the day nurse moving from one patient to another with the list in her hand” (p.16). We had to be careful, calm, controlled. If our forebodings were unwarranted we experienced a dizzy lightness and relief which, if carried too far, made us liable to be given emergency treatment. If our name appeared on the fatal list we had to try with all our might, at time unsuccessfully, to subdue the rising panic. For there was no escape. Once the names were known all doors were scrupulously locked; we had to stay in the

142

observation dormitory where the treatment was being held. (Frame [1961] p.16) For myself and anyone experiencing schizophrenia and aware of the horrors of the era of electric shock therapy, there is immense poignance in Frame’s rendition of her narrator’s fear and hopelessness: I lay and watched the dark dread growing like one of the fairy-tale plants whose existence depends on their lack of discipline, their uncontrolled urge to grow through and across into and beyond until they reach the sky and block the sun. (Frame [1961] pp.67-68) Later the narrator describes herself as “frightened confused and depressed”, and demoralised by “the powerful ward smell, like fresh meat exposed to the sun and the flies”: the smell had been like the sun, in that the world of Four-Five- and-One [Ward 451] revolved around it and drew from it a desolate kind of life; and the smell like the flies the way it sucked the air and at our breaths and our clothes and the invisible apparel of our minds. (Frame [1961] p.89) Summarising the impact of Frame’s autobiographies, Gina Mercer attests that “[i]n effect they dictate a 'sit still and be quiet' response. The story they tell is so strong, so horrifying in places, so dramatically redemptive and inspiring in others, that it is hard to comment upon” ([1993], p.41). This is true, especially from the perspective of someone who has not personally encountered schizophrenia; but for those who have, Frame’s work speaks eloquently.

Susanna Kaysen

Whilst Frame was writing very early in the history of modern medical treatment, Susanna Kaysen’s work came later, when these treatments were actively questioned. By the time of Kaysen’s writing there was some rejection of the power of hospitals and of certain medical practices with respect to patients with medical health conditions. Girl, Interrupted (1993) is Susanna

143

Kaysen’s autobiographical account of the author’s personal experiences as a young woman suffering borderline personality disorder. (It should be noted that Kaysen’s condition was very much akin to schizophrenia, but is these days regarded as not precisely the same, clinically.) Like the works by Frame, Girl, Interrupted presents the author’s condition through experiences in a psychiatric hospital. (The book’s title is a reference to Vermeer’s painting “Girl Interrupted at Her Music”.) Understanding that her condition simply amounts to “insanity” or “madness” in the eyes of the general community, Kaysen seeks to re-position her predicament to that of being in an alternate world or parallel universe: People ask, How did you get there? What they really want to know is if they are likely to end up in there as well. I can’t answer the real question. All I can tell them is, It’s easy. And it is easy to slip into a parallel universe. There are so many of them: worlds of the insane, the criminal, the crippled, the dying, perhaps of the dead as well. These worlds exist alongside this world and resemble it, but not in it. (p.5) Unlike Frame, Kaysen speaks more directly to the reader and discusses her own experience without the kind of “mediating” device of differing narrative perspectives. However, like Frame, Kaysen also seeks to convey the frightening isolation that is experienced in this other world: In the parallel universe the laws of physics are suspended. What goes up does not necessarily come down, a body at rest does not tend to stay at rest, and not every action can be counted on to provoke an equal and opposite reaction. Time, too, is different. It may run in circles, flow backward, skip about from now to then. The very arrangement of molecules is fluid. Tables can be clocks, faces, flowers. These are the facts you find out later, though. Another odd feature of the parallel universe is that although it is invisible from this side, once you are in it you can easily see the world you came from. Sometimes the world you

144

came from looks huge and menacing, quivering like a vast pile of jelly, at other times it is miniaturized and alluring, a-spin and shining in its orbit. Either way it can’t be discounted. (pp.5-6) Kaysen’s more direct mode of narration is easier for any reader to access and gives an authenticating sense of personal experience; at the same time her use of “we” builds the impression that she speaks as much for fellow sufferers as herself. She evokes a sense of eerie isolation and alienation which is echoed in a later personal account of his own mental illness by Ian Chovil: “Insidious is an appropriate word to describe the onset of schizophrenia I experienced. I gradually lost all my human relationships, first my girlfriend, then my immediate family, then friends and coworkers” (2000, p.745). Kaysen was treated in a private hospital (Frame’s was public), but conditions are still recorded as grim, and Kaysen’s account echoes Frame’s emphasis upon the details of room layouts and medical equipment: Two locked doors with five-foot space between them where you had to stand while the nurse relocked the first door and unlocked the second. Just inside, three phone booths. Then a couple of single rooms and the living room and eat-in kitchen. This arrangement ensured a good first impression for visitors. Once you turned the corner past the living room, though, things changed. A long, long hallway: too long. Seven or eight double rooms on one side, the nursing station centered on the other, flanked by the conference room and hydrotherapy tub room. Lunatics to the left, staff to the right, as though the staff claimed oversight of our most private acts. (p.45) The oppressive atmosphere is so great that even a visitor (someone who will be free to leave after their visit) speaks in hushed tones: “What do they do to you in here?” He was whispering. “Nothing,” I said. “They don’t do anything.” “It’s terrible here,” he said.

145

The living room was a particularly terrible part of our ward. It was huge and jammed with huge vinyl-covered armchairs that farted when anyone sat down. “It’s not really that bad,” I said, but I was used to it and he wasn’t. (p.26) It is hard to determine which scenario is more horrific: Frame’s image of drawing “a desolate kind of life” from “the powerful ward smell, like fresh meat exposed to the sun and the flies” (Frame [1961] p.89) or Kaysen’s resigned acceptance that “I was used to it”. A short time later Kaysen imagines escaping to an “other life” by stepping into “Jim Watson’s car” and speeding out of the hospital “and on to the airport”, but she is unable to clearly imagine such an escape because “the whole thing, in fact, was hazy” - The vinyl chairs, the security screens, the buzzing of the nursing-station door: Those things were clear. “I’m here now, Jim,” I said. “I think I’ve got to stay here.” (p.27) That is, she decides that the institution is where she now belongs and the only place in which she now can live.

Schizophrenia Bulletin’s Personal Accounts of Schizophrenia

Wood’s Life Writing and Schizophrenia: Encounters at the Edge of Meaning offers discussion of the “First Person Accounts” series of personal statements which have been appearing in the journal Schizophrenia Bulletin since 1983. The valuable contribution of this series as demonstrated in Wood’s study is reinforced by the web-page introduction to the series at the online Oxford Academic site: First person accounts are an accessible, educational source for those trying to gain insight into the first-hand experience of severe mental illness. This is particularly helpful for students studying psychology or neuroscience, basic scientists working on models of mental illness, and family

146

members trying to better understand a relative with mental illness. First person accounts place the illness in the context of real lives and vividly illustrate how someone's life has changed. The stories range from accounts of constant struggle to narratives of hope and recovery. Uniquely individual, they do not necessarily generalize to others, but their experiential diversity reflects the heterogeneity of mental illness. An appreciation of the impact made by severe mental illness helps humanize the condition, foster empathy and compassion, reduce stigma, and generate hope. First person accounts also enhance societal appreciation of the human condition compromised by severe mental illness. () It needs to be noted, however, that these “First Person Accounts” are intended primarily for a readership of professionals working in the field, rather than for those who are actually experiencing first-hand. This is borne out by the rubric published with each individual “First Person Accounts” contribution: We hope that mental health professionals—the Bulletin's primary audience—will take this opportunity to learn about the issues and difficulties confronted by consumers of mental health care. In addition, we hope that these accounts will give patients and families a better sense of not being alone in confronting the problems that can be anticipated by persons with serious emotional difficulties. We welcome other contributions from patients, ex-patients, or family members. Our major editorial requirement is that such contributions be clearly written and organized, and that a novel or unique aspect of schizophrenia be described, with special emphasis on points that will be important for professionals.

147

This strong emphasis on the importance of first-person accounts has also recently been reflected in Gail A. Hornstein’s Agnes’s Jacket: A Psychologist’s Search for the Meanings of Madness (2017) and Elizabeth J. Donaldson’s Literatures of Madness: Disability Studies and Mental Health (2018), which each make extensive use of first-person material. As indicated by the sub-titles of these works, it appears that “Professionals” are once again the “primary audience”, as was the case with pieces appearing in Schizophrenia Bulletin. Nevertheless, “First Person Accounts” do often represent a worthwhile record of contemporary schizophrenic experience. Many accounts focus on the experience of discovering the presence of schizophrenia (for example, Susan Weiner’s account begins, “Let me see if I can accurately convey for you the experience of going mad” [(2017), p.707] – where “going mad” equates with developing symptoms of schizophrenia) but others offer a significant first step towards giving voice to the experience of schizophrenics managing their illness whilst living in the contemporary community. Ian Chovil, mentioned earlier, and Valerie Fox each describe the post-hospitalisation experience of living on medication: I took the antipsychotic medication and over the next few years started to develop insight. They were in some ways the hardest years. I was depressed, lethargic, very lonely, with no purpose or direction. I was now 35, with no friends, no career skills, and no resume to speak of”. (Chovil [2000], p.746)

When I was healthy enough to leave the hospital, I was overwhelmed. I could not believe the medicine was good for me because I had never felt so depressed and lethargic as I did while taking the medicine. (Fox [2001], p.177) Tracey Dykstra’s first person account has echoes of my own experience, inasmuch as Dykstra found it took time to be correctly diagnosed, and suffered setbacks due to a series of extremely traumatic personal losses: When I entered college, I sought professional help but was misdiagnosed with major depression and put on a host of

148

antidepressants, most of which aggravated my condition and led to weight gain. My thoughts at the time were delusional and paranoid, but I kept them to myself…. […] For 12 years I lived essentially untreated, barely able to hold my job as a secretary. It felt as though I was living in a mine field: Any additional stress and I would be blown apart. In my late 20s, stressors seemed to come in rapid succession: My father died, my boyfriend and I broke up, and I lost my job. Like a soldier with battle fatigue, I just could not cope any longer. (Dykstra [1997] p.697) At this point Dykstra’s greatest fears were realised as she was hospitalised for a third time (“I hated everything about it [hospital], from the total loss of independence to the bad food and lack of exercise”, p.697). She explains that “When it came time to leave the State hospital, I counted my blessings in being able to return to independent living and attend a good day-treatment program”: After completing day treatment, I was determined to finish my degree. […] Studying was not easy. Despite all the setbacks— not to mention being told by a psychiatrist that I would never graduate—I finally received my B.A. in political science from the University of Minnesota in 1994. (p.698) Upon graduation she engaged an employment agency to help her to find work, but records that “my symptoms made it obvious that I could not hold a full-time job. (For several months I was depressed, sleeping 14 hours a night.)” (p.698). Dykstra sets out the practical difficulties she faced – “I had great difficulty accounting for the widening gap in my work history” – and she also records her mental and emotional difficulties: “During interviews I became paranoid that the interviewers were aware of what was ‘wrong’ with me, even though I rarely disclosed my illness” (p.698). Having eventually secured “a temporary part- time job delivering interoffice mail”, Dykstra had to quit after only 10 months “because of recurring paranoid thoughts and stress-related symptoms” (p.698). Reflecting on this experience she says, “I really miss the money but would not trade it for another hospitalization” (p.698).

149

The practical issue of money is a vital issue for schizophrenics managing their condition and living in the community. Towards the end of her account Dykstra says she is “currently working to restore my finances. At the time of my committal, I owed a modest amount to two credit card companies and had a fairly sizable guaranteed student loan”. As an aside she offers practical advice to others (in 1997): I would emphatically advise against anyone with a mental health problem taking out a student loan. The government has no provision in the event of mental illness preventing one from paying the loan back. (p.698) She summarises her experience in a sentence: “Having a major mental illness has had a devastating effect on all aspects of my life” (p.698). Valerie Fox’s “First Person Account” contribution shows how, on the one hand, a person can achieve a satisfactory life despite being diagnosed as schizophrenic, at the same time establishing that the condition will always have an impact on her life: While in remission I met a good man and discussed with my doctor the feasibility of my getting married and having children. In 1966, there was no evidence that body chemistry was responsible for schizophrenia; therefore, the possibility of passing the illness to children was not considered. I did marry and gave birth to two children. During the course of the marriage, if we had an argument and I got angry, my husband would say, "Valerie, are you getting ill?" I wasn't getting ill, but my illness was a controlling factor for my husband to use over me. (Fox [2001], p.178) These and many other contributions to the Schizophrenia Bulletin “First Person Accounts” help to move the discussion of schizophrenia beyond hospitalisation, as well as allowing the voices of schizophrenics to be heard. Nevertheless, these contributions are read mainly by professionals and a limited number of schizophrenics; they do not reach out to a wider general audience of non-schizophrenics. Constrained by notions of reportage and

150

scientific documentation, they are only the earliest of steps towards a vigorous literary exploration of the life of the schizophrenic in the community. To date there have been only a very limited number of other works which have attempted to write autobiographically about the experience of living with schizophrenia in the community after hospitalisation. In both The Unsayable: The Hidden Language of Trauma (2007) and Incandescent Alphabets: Psychosis and the Enigma of Language (2016) Annie G. Rogers provides an autobiographical account of her efforts to live in the outside world and establish herself in a new working life, and this “post-hospitalisation” phase is also explored in the final sections of The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness (2008) by Elyn R. Saks. It does however need to be noted that both authors find a need to “tether” their narratives to accounts of their original experience of psychosis and diagnosis: Rogers’ first book, A Shining Affliction: A Story of Harm and Healing in Psychotherapy (1996), is entirely devoted to the “back-story” of psychosis-and-diagnosis, with her subsequent two books serving as “sequels”, and Saks devotes the bulk of The Center Cannot Hold to her experience of hospitalization. Whilst this is a legitimate approach, it nevertheless presents the schizophrenic subject as someone whose situation needs to be “explained” or “contextualized”, as if there were a notional “normal” from which they had “departed”.

Existential Skeleton as a “Post-hospitalisation” Narrative

As mentioned before, Girl, Interrupted offers a rather bleak view of the schizophrenic at one point, when the narrator says: “And what about schizophrenia – that would send a chill up your spine. After all, that’s real insanity. People don’t ‘recover’ from schizophrenia” (Kaysen [1993], p. 151). This may have been Kaysen’s impression in the early 1990s, but things have changed a great deal since then. Schizophrenia is today regarded as a manageable (if chronic) illness – a far cry from “real insanity” – and schizophrenics do “recover” to the extent that they are sometimes able to manage their condition, as attested by a personal account published in Schizophrenia Bulletin:

151

I believe that I am working toward “recovery,” but I still struggle with what that means to me. Does “recovery” mean the relative absence of the symptoms that I have described? Or, rather, the conviction that I can learn to deconstruct the messages associated with my symptoms and to set limits with my symptoms in a way that is both assertive and respectful? Assuming that the latter represents the first milestone in my recovery journey, I believe that I am beginning to learn to work with my symptoms and not against them—to view my symptoms as a source of insights into emotions that date back to my early childhood, and to feel grateful for these insights. (Anonymous [2017], pp.1-2). I spent a rather brief time in hospital when I was diagnosed, the visit in my case lasting just two to three weeks. However, it is not uncommon for periods of continuous hospitalisation to last for months, or even for years (prior to the 1960s). Protracted hospitalisation, the reliance on sedating drugs like valium, and the high representation of women in psychiatric treatment became a political issue at that time, as demonstrated by the work of Kaysen [1993], Foudraine [1971], and Chamberlin [1990], amongst others). Zeshan et al (2018) state: This fundamental change began with the process of deinstitutionalization in the early 1960s, leading to greater emphasis on community-based services. De- institutionalization policies also resulted in the unavailability of psychiatric beds and a considerable reduction in the duration of stay in mental health institutions for these patients. (2018, p.143) I have found in my own life that I prefer freedom of choice rather than the controlled institutionalised life; I prefer to have the ability to live and exist within society rather having my life structured and regimented for me. (I do acknowledge that in this respect I am fortunate, since some are institutionalised by force and others simply cannot handle the outside life.) I

152

strongly believe that when someone has the institution doing things for them the person risks becoming unable to cope in the real world and it is common for people to yo-yo between outpatient life and inpatient life due to the “unavailability of psychiatric beds” mentioned earlier. It was my intention in Existential Skeleton to reflect upon a schizophrenic coping in the outside world under contemporary conditions. With respect to the protagonist of Existential Skeleton, she is portrayed as having accepted her diagnosis and rapidly moved into the community. A person’s attitude often varies at these points because of need for acceptance and the process of becoming better is often threatening and frightening to the patient. Istina Mavet, the main character in Faces in the Water, overcomes her illness, avoids lobotomy, and resolves to address the problems with her thinking. The protagonist in Existential Skeleton also decides to address her thinking and to self-manage her life, but she undertakes this process in the community. My protagonist accepts what is going on rather than trying to fight it. For example, Daphne from Owls Do Cry responds to her mother’s death quite differently to the protagonist in Existential Skeleton. Here is a sample of Daphne’s thinking (whilst hospitalised): Mother will be buried in the family grave if there is room for her. But my father will languish, I fear he will die, and how strange with my father dead, the little hopping man of cruelty, tyranny, and child-like dependence. What will Toby do? And Daphne? Oh my mother was as big as the arm of land will hold sea and not spill. I cannot imagine her death. I think of her at home putting the pikelets on the gridle or singing her kind of half song as she wiped the dishes with end of a dirty and wet tea-towel... Oh I don’t know, I am half Daphne in writing this, it is not my usual way, as if a spell had come over me. (Frame [1957], p.118-119)

153

Her thought processes are a sign of surreal thinking about her mother’s death, the type of sur-reality produced by institutionalisation (and perhaps compounded by emotional blunting). In contrast, the thought process of my protagonist is more pragmatic, though still distanced from the trauma: I was reading the words of L’Etranger again and again: “Mother died today, or maybe yesterday. Je ne sais pas.” That’s it, my mother is dead. I feel relieved. My protagonist sees this event in blunted terms: “my mother is dead. I feel relieved”. Unlike Frame’s Daphne, she does not go on to elaborate much about the things that her mother did. Daphne’s experience is more surreal and confusing, this being the type of experience that one can get with the hospitalisation of a person experiencing emotional blunting. Nothing feels quite real, though I argue that the experience for my protagonist is not surreal but a realisation that her mother is actually dead. The four stages I went through are: the surreal (hospitalisation), denial (diagnosis), actualisation (medication) and realisation (post-hospitalisation – in the community). I write from the last stage, so my protagonist is portrayed at a stage in her schizophrenia when she is no longer caught up in the traumatic experience of trying to make the medical and lived experience congruent; she has evolved to a point of realisation. She knows there is something wrong with her but can’t help the way she responds to situations because of the lingering symptoms of schizophrenia. She strives to understand and make sense of the world and society that she is supposed to be a part of, trying to take these effects into account. In contrast, earlier works about hospitalisation show people segregated from society and often not aware of the significance of their symptoms. Hospitalisation is about living in the community of the mentally ill; it is not about living in society. I chose to focus on the post-hospitalisation stage of the illness as I feel little work has been done to represent this stage and there is a gap in writing about this experience. Whilst schizophrenic thought-processes vary at the different stages of the natural progression, in my personal experience (and in my personal observation) they inevitably stay with the sufferer no matter

154

how “well” they may become. One purpose of my writing, then, is to demythologise the idea of “cure” with schizophrenia and instead address the idea of “living with” schizophrenia and its treatment.

155

3 – AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND AUTOFICTION

Earlier in this discussion I have concentrated on my personal experience of schizophrenia and the ways in which this is reflected in Existential Skeleton. I must emphasise, however, that Existential Skeleton is not autobiographical, and I now turn to discussing the nature of autobiography and the autobiographical, with a view to establishing that these concepts have become problematical and de-stabilised in recent times. This in turn will lead to a discussion of the concept of Autofiction, since I believe my own methodological approach in writing in Existential Skeleton is best described as “Autofiction”, and I will then discuss the crafting of three key characters – Bethany, Emanuel, and Mike – as examples of the writing of Autofiction.

Autobiography

Janet Frame’s comments on her own work indicate the complexity of any discussion touching upon autobiographically-tinged writings. Here are Frame’s comments in an interview published in the New Zealand literary journal Landfall:* ELIZABETH ALLEY In the autobiography you seem more willing than in the fiction to open some of the doors about yourself and your life - to correct some of the myths that surround you. ______* It needs to be noted that the views expressed in this interview represent Frame’s view of her work more than a quarter of a century after the publication of Faces in the Water in 1961. It is therefore possible that they may not represent her views at time of writing, but if that is the case then it can be argued that they reflect her mature, considered views of the work. It should also be noted that the interview text published in Landfall is actually an amalgam “made out of two separate interviews recorded for Radio New Zealand by Elizabeth Alley”: the first was recorded in 1983, the second in 1988 (Alley [1991], p.154).

156

JANET FRAME I wanted to write my story, and you're right of course, it is possible to correct some things which have been taken as fact and are not fact. My fiction is genuinely fiction. And I do invent things. Even in The Lagoon which has many childhood stories, the children are invented and the episodes are invented, but they are mixed up so much with part of my early childhood. But they're not quite, they're not the true, stories. To the Is-Land was the first time I'd written the true story. For instance, Faces in the Water was autobiographical in the sense that everything happened, but the central character was invented. (Alley [1991], p.155) My chief argument about these remarks is that they demonstrate the extraordinary diversity and complexity of the issues involved in any discussion of writing from life. “Fact” is played against “not fact”, “invention” is linked with “fiction” (which can be “genuinely fiction” [my italics]), and truth (invoked in the idea of “true” stories and “the true story”) seems not to be synonymous with fact. For my purposes the most important aspect of this comment is the statement that “Faces in the Water was autobiographical in the sense that everything happened, but the central character was invented”. This remark, coming from a writer of Frame’s stature, gives considerable latitude to a writer such as myself, for it establishes that a work can be “autobiographical” even though a key element such as the central character is “invented”. For my part, I regard the central character in Existential Skeleton as “invented”, and whilst I most definitely cannot say that “everything happened”, I have already shown how many of the things which “happened” to my protagonist have indeed happened to myself or to people with whom I have been closely associated. In short, Frame establishes that the links between “fact” and “fiction” and “invention” and what “happened” are complicated and multi-faceted; this makes it hard to establish the boundaries of autobiography and the autobiographical.

157

The term “autobiography” was first coined in 1797 by William Taylor, who suggested that the word was a hybrid (Good, 1981, p.126). Later, in 1809, Robert Southey adopted the term and it was used throughout the early nineteenth century. In the last quarter-century the critical understanding of the nature of autobiography has changed. Some theorists, such as Anderson, still uphold the idea that autobiography is a form of “direct access” to a life: Autobiographies are seen as providing proof of the validity and importance of a certain conception of authorship: authors who have authority over their own texts and whose writings can be read as forms of direct access to themselves (Anderson, 2001, p.3). Others view the notion of autobiography as more problematic. Jouan-Westlund points out that The attempt to recapture a life through writing often takes the form of reconstructing the past through the act of writing in the present, which involves a great deal of selection. The past of memories haunts the present of writing, but in doing so, is profoundly transformed. Moreover, autobiographers always have to resort to their failing memory. Memory is capricious and unpredictable, it has a tendency to embellish the most remote remembrances of the past. (Jouan-Westlund, 1997, p.416). Raising a similar note of caution, Simone de Beauvoir’s Memoireś d'une Jeune Fille Rangée (1958) observes that the present leaves its own imprint on the past, creating a situation in which memories often become distorted: "Cette belle histoire qui était ma vie, elle devenait fausse à mesure que je la racontais" (p.204). The introduction to Gillian Whitlock’s Autographs: Contemporary Australian Autobiography (1996) makes an observation that has been fundamentally important to the writing of Existential Skeleton. In her “Introduction: Disobedient Subjects” Whitlocks asserts that autobiography is undergoing a time of change and evolution which leaves it in a state of flux:

158

Anxieties about boundaries and ways of writing and reading lives are throughout Autographs and the field of contemporary studies of autobiographical writing internationally. When does a memoir become an autobiography? When does autobiography become fiction? Or biography? We inherit explorations of the territory which mark these boundaries quite carefully, yet the mutations and permutations which are now occurring in autobiographical writing makes these open to question. Labels are no help either, as authorial intention (no less than with critical writings) is often a faulty star by which to chart a course. The profusion of autobiographical writing, both here and overseas, seems a kind of wonderful revenge for that period when death of the author in particular was proclaimed and subjectively in general was reduced to a mythic status. Now, in these fin de siecle times, ‘me myself and I’ is everywhere – or nowhere some would say! (p.ix) In order to show why the Whitlock collection has been so important to my own work, I need to explain the organising principles behind her collection before outlining my particular reservations about it and discussing how these reservations were inspirational in regard to my approach in Existential Skeleton. Whitlock explicitly states that her intention “is to highlight rather than restrain [the] diversity” of contemporary Australian autobiographical writings and that “[t]he sections which organise these writings deliberately avoid identity-based coordinates of gender, race, ethnicity and so on. The categories I have selected here – Voice, Histories, Place and Space, Belief, Childhood – are designed to mix what might be conventionally understood as ethnic, Aboriginal, female, gay and other constructions of the self” (p.ix). Despite this admirable breadth of scope, it does need to be said that if one reads Autographs from the perspective of a person who is schizophrenic, certain limitations become apparent.

159

One of these limitations is Whitlock’s tendency to select work by established and applauded writers. For example, Autographs includes well- established authors such as Peter Carey, Barbara Hanrahan, Dorothy Hewett, Elizabeth Jolley, David Malouf, Ruth Park, and Patrick White, amongst others, in addition to well-known public commentators like Germaine Greer and Barry Humphries. Amongst other contributors, Albert Facey had attracted media interest due to the success of his single book, A Fortunate Life (1981) and Blanche d’Alpuget (already a published novelist) had attracted high levels of media coverage in the lead-up to her marriage to former Prime Minister Bob Hawke in 1995. These comments are not meant to denigrate the achievements of, or challenge the inclusion of, any of these writers; but in a book which could offer only the limited space available to most volumes in this particular University of Queensland Press “Australian Authors” series, the preference for “known” figures would have militated against the inclusion of those “less known”. One of the achievements of Autographs lies in its inclusion of Indigenous writers, each of whom was arguably much less “known” than, for example, Carey and White or Greer and Humphries. Autographs includes work by Jack Davis, Jackie and Rita Huggins, Ruby Langford, Sally Morgan, and Wanda Koolmatrie (who was later exposed as the hoax pseudonym of white male author Leon Carmen). The same spirit of inclusiveness is less present, however, if a reader (such as myself) looks for material that deals with the process of handling physical affliction: there is little apart from Patrick White’s experience as a sickly child (suffering from what was evidently undiagnosed asthma and enduring his parents’ discomfort at his lack of robust health) and Eric Michaels’ account of his AIDS diagnosis (which appears in the “Voice” section of the anthology). As a collection, Autographs is not very reflective of the experience of people dealing with serious ongoing medical issues. These comments are not intended as criticisms of Autographs, for clearly a single volume cannot extend the notion of inclusiveness to everything. These comments reflect my personal responses prompted by my personal situation, and I would only note that there are a large number of Australians

160

who live on a daily basis with ongoing medical or clinical affliction of one kind or another. My observations about Autographs are offered as a record of thoughts and reactions which prompted me to use Existential Skeleton to give an account of the neglected experience of being schizophrenic. Autographs provided me with numerous interesting ideas in relation to the approaches I might take to my own material. In “Paddy”, for example, Patrick White shifts his narration between first-person and third person, prompting me to ask myself, Why did he do that? What does he gain? Would this be a technique I should use? Blanche D’Alpuget’s “Lust” tells of her 1956 “fling” with a 50-year-old judge when she was only 12. The passage reads as though it was a hot love affair, but at the same time revolts the reader because of Blanche’s age (the adult in me wants to protect and warn her off him). Since aspects of schizophrenia are similarly “confusing” or “contradictory” to the outsider, I considered whether there might be opportunities to use a similar alienation technique in Existential Skeleton. Ania Walwicz’s piece, “’so small’”, uses neither punctuation nor capitals – “when I came here the world shrank I only had a little space to be in I didn’t want to go to the outside” (Whitlock [1992], p.42). In this case I didn’t have to ask myself if I would use the technique, for I felt that I was secretly supplying the full-stops and capitals as I read Walwicz’s prose and resolved to offer this service free to readers of Existential Skeleton. (Walwicz undoubtledly uses the technique at least partly to communicate her narrator’s absolute lack of self-confidence, reflected in a timid inability to impose shaping and end-stopping on sentences and utterances; but it can also feel like an assertive refusal to follow convention….)

Autofiction

For me the breakthrough in formulating my own methodological approach came when I encountered the notion of autofiction. The term “autofiction” was created in 1977 by the French novelist Serge Doubrovsky, who first used the word in public discourse in an explanatory statement on the back cover of his novel Fils (1977) – though Dix has suggested a somewhat

161

earlier date.* Jones explains that “whilst writing this work [Fils] Doubrovsky realised that although his text was clearly autobiographical, it did not fit into the model of life-writing genres that Philippe Lejeune had theorised in Le Pacte Autobiographique (1975). Most crucially, whilst it was written in the first person singular and the author, narrator, and protagonist retained the same name, Fils was labelled 'roman' and bore other traces of a partially fictitious content” (Jones, 2009, pp.2-3). Concerned by this “blurring of the boundaries of truth and fiction” (Jones, 2009, p.3) Doubrovsky’s back cover note read as follows: Autobiography? No, that is a privilege reserved for the important people of this world, at the end of their lives, in a refined style. Fiction, of events and facts strictly real; autofiction, if you will, to have entrusted the language of an adventure to the adventure of language, outside of the wisdom and the syntax of the novel, traditional or new. (Doubrovsky, 1977) Although somewhat cryptic, this notation appears to have attracted interest for three reasons. One of these would have been Doubrovsky’s personal reputation as a thinker who expressed ideas through his roles as professor and literary critic. A second would have been his sustained and prize-winning literary output of “Autobiographical novels, which he prefers to characterize as autofictions” – La Dispersion (1969), Fils (1977), Un Amour de Soi (1982), La Vie L’insant (1983), Le Livre Brisé (1989) and L’Après-vivre (1992) – each of which can be described as “pushing the limits of the genre” (Jouan-Westlund, 1997, p.415). The third, I would argue, lies in the increasing fluidity and uncertainty surrounding the idea of “autobiography”, as attested by the material previously quoted from Whitlock’s Introduction to Autographs in 1996: ______* According to Dix, “research carried out by Isabelle Grell has revealed that he first scribbled the word [autofiction] in notebooks as early as 1973, while making regular visits to a psychoanalyst in New York, apparently as a way of describing what he had tried to do in his own writing, no more. Thus, the use of the term autofiction to invoke a larger body of theoretical work did not come about immediately and in fact has taken almost half a century to occur.” (2017, p.69)

162

“Anxieties about boundaries and ways of writing and reading lives are throughout … the field of contemporary studies of autobiographical writing internationally. When does a memoir become an autobiography? When does autobiography become fiction? Or biography?” Jones notes that Doubrovsky’s idea “has spread beyond the boundaries of the French-speaking world to English, German, and Spanish language criticism” (2009, p.1) and Dix notes that “autofiction” as a term “has subsequently been received into the French dictionary and has increasingly been used to make a general distinction between straightforward forms of autobiography on the one hand and a more precise (and newly emergent) writing practice on the other” (2017, p.69). According to Jouan-Westlund, the notion of autofiction “has the advantage of clearly exposing the fundamentally fictitious nature of autobiography” (1997, p.431). Jouan-Westlund further argues that “[a]lthough autobiography is constituted by three major components, the identity of the subject (auto), life (bio), and writing (graphy), the genre does not necessarily imply a single form of writing but rather different combinations of these three elements” (1997, p.416) and it is in this context that Doubrovsky’s innovation allows for “an ambiguous form of writing that lets the reader know that it expresses a certain truth without claiming to be totally truthful” (Jouan- Westlund 1997, 418). So what exactly is autofiction and why do I describe this as best representing my methodology? Doubrovsky avoids spelling out his idea in exacting detail, leaving it to time and others (through their interpretations and practices**) to evolve any specific or limiting understandings of what the term might mean. However, Doubrovsky’s statement about Fils does provide a broad framing for his concept. In describing autobiography as “a privilege reserved for the important people of this world, at the end of their lives, in a refined style” he links autobiography with the phenomenon I have noted in Autographs, namely, the favouring of work by those with the status of being established in their field – of having achieved a kind of “celebrity” or reverential status:

163

Using the work of Rousseau as an example of classical autobiographical writing, Doubrovsky reasoned that only major figures of cultural, historical or political significance are privileged to write autobiographies and that this privilege does not extend to a mere “nobody” such as himself. (Dix 2017, p.71, citing Doubrovsky 2001, p.104) Doubrovsky implies that autobiography has been considered to be “reserved” for such people, and that even they can only approach autobiography as an exercise in career-review “at the end of their lives” and even they must write “in a refined style”. Dix contends that this “stylistic definition” (2017, p.71), read in the context of Doubrovsky’s specification of “Fiction, of events and facts strictly real”, indicates that “he [Doubrovsky] simultaneously committed to the narration of real events and to the designation of his works as novels. They employed, in an apparently non-fictional genre, the stylistic literary techniques more commonly associated with modernist fiction” (Dix 2017, p.71). Doubrovsky also challenged received notions about the subject matter of autobiography. In his interview with Celestin (1997), Doubrovsky explains that, historically, autobiography “was the grand récit, it was the recapturing of a whole life” (p.399). He sees this as being especially true of the work of “Rousseau, Chateaubriand or Goethe” and goes on to say that “Chateaubriand is an extraordinarily striking example, he wrote his whole life over and over during years and there is a sort of entrecroisement de l'écriture et de la vie, a criss-crossing of writing and life which is part of the book. In its early phase, autobiography was also called the discours des Lumières, the discourse of Enlightenment, the way of making sense of a human life, no matter how complex it was” (Interview, pp.399-400). Autofiction, by contrast, “takes the place of the grand récit” and “introduces a break within the history of autobiography” (p.399): The meaning of one's life in certain ways escapes us, so we have to reinvent it in our writing, and that is what I personally call autofiction. It doesn't mean that you write any old thing that comes to your mind about yourself. You try to recapture

164

phases of yourself, but you know, you're aware that, to a large extent, it's only the way you tell the story to yourself. It's no longer the grand récit, it's the short story so to speak, and you will notice that most of the books which come within the field of autobiography today in France only deal with a particular period of the author's life…. (Interview p.400) Such a statement is “liberating” to a younger writer like myself. Having in his earlier statements already “freed” the young writer from the need to be a “major figure”, Doubrovsky now grants the freedom to write a “short[er] story” reflecting aspects of a life still in progress. To be candid, my writing of Existential Skeleton was not driven by a desire to write a work capable of being labelled “autofiction”; it was mainly prompted by an impulse to write about the problem of schizophrenia as experienced by someone living in the community whilst managing this condition. I regarded my material as being drawn from my own life-experience (in relation to things that happened to myself and to people that I knew) but this was edged by an awareness that some details needed to be changed. The reasons for the change were various, ranging from legal protection to consideration of others’ feelings to the need to ensure sustained dramatic effect. Expressing this in a different, somewhat more academically formal way, I would say that even if my initial approach was in some ways naïve and uninquisitive, it was nevertheless always alert to and aware of its own complexities in regard to its mixing of the “real” and the “imagined”, “fact” and “fiction”. In short, I believe I was adopting the broad methodology of “autofiction” before it had ever occurred to me that the word “autofiction” might be a neat fit with my practice. (In saying this I am naturally not claiming to have duplicated Doubrovsky’s thought-processes myself, unaided; the invention of the wheel involved more than just an observation that roundish things roll more quickly than squarish things….)

165

4 - CRAFTING EXISTENTIAL SKELETON

In the remaining section of this exegesis I will discuss the crafting of selected key aspects of Existential Skeleton, demonstrating the ways in which it seeks to illustrate aspects of schizophrenia and the ways in which my writing process combines fact and fiction and the real and the imagined in a manner akin to “autofiction”.

Schizophrenic Thought-Processes

As previously discussed, disorganisation of thoughts and speech is a common symptom with schizophrenia and I chose to particularly reflect this in my protagonist. (The alternative would have been to have the protagonist experience delusions or hallucinations; however, the implication in Existential Skeleton is that these are no longer apparent in the protagonist, given the stage she has reached in dealing with her condition). The protagonist’s thought-processes do still differ from the norm and, despite being medicated, the protagonist is unable to shake off or correct these variations. Disorganised thoughts can involve a difficulty in thinking which varies from mild to incoherent; for my protagonist the disorganisation of the thought process is represented as mild. Her thinking does not always flow or connect, as seen in the example of the death of her mother, which only warrants a few sentences of dialogue before the protagonist then quickly moves on to contemplating the break-up with her current boyfriend. This response effectively outlines from the outset the disassociation and lack of connectivity in her thought-processes and communication. Whilst the protagonist’s thoughts and responses on the death of her mother make a kind of sense, the immediate jump from death to the break-up with her boyfriend would generally be regarded as unusual and disconnected. This is known as loose associations, a psychiatric term for the process that

166

occurs when a person’s thought disorders cause a sufferer to respond to questions with unrelated answers, or parts of sentences that do not follow a logical sequence or relate to one another (see Grinnell 2016). This is apparent in schizophrenia even when treatment is occurring. When schizophrenic loose associations are present, the person’s communication patterns appear random and can be based on sounds or free association or puns that are difficult to understand. Loose associations are also known as derailment and this is used as a symptom to diagnose schizophrenia (see Grinnell 2016). An example of loose association or derailment is present when my protagonist says: The family believe that I have caused a divide between them. I tried to tell them that it wasn’t my fault. How am I responsible, if someone doesn’t like me from what they hear? They don’t know me. I had a cigarette because I wanted one. My mind was numb and I didn’t know what to feel. There are two crucial aspects to this response. The main and obvious aspect is the sudden and unexpected line, “I had a cigarette because I wanted one”. This, together with the reference to feelings of “numbness” (rather than guilt), seems quite unrelated to the issue of the family’s beliefs. It is as if the protagonist has lost track of the purpose of the conversation between the “rift in the family” and “having a cigarette”; this is a sign of loose association/derailment. The protagonist also seeks to distance herself from the family’s beliefs by implying that the person being condemned is not her true self: “How am I responsible, if someone doesn’t like me from what they hear? They don’t know me.” The link between tangentiality and loose associations/derailment is present in this piece of writing about the family divide. Tangentiality is a symptom of communication/speech where a person is experiencing high levels of anxiety or psychosis (Grinnell 2016). The term refers to another thought disorder present in schizophrenia, whereby there is a lack of awareness of and adherence to the main subject of discourse, resulting in the individual deviating from the topic. Tangentiality is often seen in questioning, where the person seems evasive or gives an unrelated answer to a direct question. The

167

protagonist asks herself a question: “How am I responsible, if someone doesn’t like me from what they hear?” and answers evasively with “They don’t know me”. That is, instead of exploring the question and its meaning she becomes defensive at the thought of it, which is not uncommon in schizophrenia. The “They don’t know me” phrase seems unrelated to taking responsibility for an action. The person’s speech seems to indicate their attention to their own process of communication, which in some way has become overtaken by the processes of unrelated cognition, causing the content of speech to follow thought, apparently without reference to the original idea or topic. The person’s response is then considered evasive as the person appears to have directly and consciously avoided the original question. Clang associations (or clanging) is another feature of schizophrenic thought-processes represented in Existential Skeleton. These are a group of words, usually linked by rhyme or alliteration, which have no logical reason for being grouped together (Grinnell 2016). A person who communicates in this way is either showing signs of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. The example in Existential Skeleton is based on a Michael Jackson song that has given the protagonist inspiration: “Kick me. Kike me. You don’t even like me.” (Jackson 1995). In the second verse of “They Don’t Care About Us” Jackson sings “Beat me, hate me, You can never break me, Will me, thrill me, You can never kill me, Jew me, sue me, Everybody do me, Kick me, kike me, Don’t you black or white me”. Picking up on the issue of persecution raised in the song, the protagonist forms her own clang association out of “Kick me, Kike me” using the words “You don’t even like me” to show how she feels persecuted by society. This is a good example of a clang association where the person is using nonsensical poetry to express something that no one else can really make sense of. By this stage in the text we are aware that the protagonist is feeling persecuted and often refers to the reader as not understanding her or caring about her. The “Kick me. Kike me. You don’t even like me” phrase is meant to show that the protagonist feels downtrodden and rejected by society. A similar further symptom of disturbed thought process is found in the use of neologism, the coining or use of new words; Anderson (2016) asserts

168

that this is common in those suffering from schizophrenia. The protagonist does not refer to monotheism in normal terms and does not use the term “God”. She simply refers to monotheistic religions as “Big Daddy religions”, a term that she has coined as a shorthand for patriarchal belief systems. When she refers to God she calls him “Big Daddy”, seeing God as the ultimate “father figure” and choosing to reject this notion. She clearly has problems with her own father and rejects him in much the same way as she rejects patriarchy and the notion of God. The “Big Daddy” phrasings, whilst clearly logical in the way they derive from her views and feelings, are nevertheless neologisms reflective of her schizophrenic thinking. The protagonist of Existential Skeleton has not been constructed to exhibit every possible sign or symptom of schizophrenia. Apart from the fact that I felt this would be unrealistic – or at least highly atypical – I also did not want the protagonist to be a “text-book” case. I wanted her to show some distinct signs of schizophrenia in a manner that was broadly representative. For this reason the protagonist does not exhibit word salad (a confused or unintelligible mixture of random words or phrases which is indicative of advanced, untreated schizophrenia) or echolalia (the meaningless repetition of another’s spoken or written words) and, as mentioned previously, she is not shown to experience hallucinations or delusions because she is portrayed as being in the treatment phase of dealing with her schizophrenia and is medication compliant.

Blunting and Anger

There is an element of anger woven into my protagonist’s outlook, even though feelings of anger are not unique to schizophrenics. Thinking of the historical institutional treatment of schizophrenics (as represented by Frame and Kaysen), I wanted my protagonist’s outlook to seem to be mindful of these past collective injustices (although the text does not go into detail about the protagonist’s own experiences during hospitalisation). The protagonist is angry at the world and at people in her life, even her mother:

169

Mother, yes my mother. She didn’t endear love. She lost her temper. I know when I told people that I never loved her, including my father, he said: “I don’t want to hear that, I think you really do!” He’s wrong, I don’t. I didn’t even care about her. Her viciousness and deep-seated need to be right caused contempt in me. I wished that I could love her, but you can’t just turn it on. Readers will detect a deliberate ambiguity in this: the protagonist is very angry at her mother for her treatment of her and believes that somehow this has caused her (the protagonist) not to feel love anymore – but is this angry outrage or is it an expression of emotional blunting/flat affect? (To the extent that an answer can be given, it is probably “both”.) There may even be some paradoxical connection between the two, for the protagonist’s anger is often reflected outward, toward the reader, for she sees the reader as reflecting society in general and, like society in general, neither understanding nor really caring about the plight of someone dealing with schizophrenia. I have tried to make flat affect very apparent in the protagonist of Existential Skeleton. One of the signs that the protagonist is suffering this symptom of schizophrenia becomes apparent when she states: “It is easy: you make a decision and you live with the consequences. Neediness irritates me. I want to be far away from it. Call me a sociopath, I don’t care. You don’t know anything about me.” She refers to judgemental views of her behaviour as sociopathic, yet states that the reader knows little about her. The “I don’t care” statement shows a degree of apathy that is consistent with the diagnosis of schizophrenia and a resentment of labels. She shows irritation toward “neediness” but little empathetic understanding of why someone might feel needy. This lack of empathy is also normal in flat affect, whereby the protagonist is showing that she doesn’t fully understand the range of emotion that is often experienced by a healthy individual. But I have tried to combine it with the protagonist’s sense of angry outrage at the world, hoping that readers will detect angry contempt for the reader in “You don’t know anything about

170

me” and that readers will understand the statement “I don’t care” to be potentially as much angrily defiant as it is apathetic. Elsewhere the protagonist states, “My mind was numb and I didn’t know what to feel.” The idea of her “mind being numb” shows more of the apathetic flat affect that she is experiencing and “not knowing what to feel” shows that she is not able to process emotion in the same way as those without a mental illness. This apathy and lack of emotional responsiveness is more recognisable (and unambiguous) when she talks about love: Emanuel said he loved me. I don’t know what love is. I am not sure I feel it or understand it. Over time, I have come to believe that love doesn’t exist at all, that it is a human abstract which has been created by society. I didn’t love Emanuel but I found his company pleasing when things were good between us. This questioning of love shows a distinct inability to engage with the normal range of emotion which is indicative of the schizophrenic experience of flat affect and the social isolation which is caused by such lack of feeling. The protagonist of Existential Skeleton has been crafted to show a lack of empathy toward others. When her father, understandably, does not want to hear that his daughter doesn’t love her mother, the protagonist does not offer a placating white lie. Such a refusal to engage with others on an emotional level could be seen as self-protectiveness, however this is not the case: her personal interactions with father, boyfriend and others indicate that she is experiencing a general lack of emotional engagement. By showing her interaction with others one can understand the social impairment that comes with the pathology. While she mixes with people from different demographics she responds differently to them and often with judgement. An example of this is how she deals with Bethany her flatmate: she looks down on her for emotional responses and refers to her as being a human “door mat” and speaks about how this annoys her. Her inability to empathise makes her distant to others and does not allow deep emotional bonds to happen.

171

Honesty

This dramatic lack of empathy toward others is balanced by what I would describe as the fundamental honesty of schizophrenics, and this is a key identity characteristic I have sought to represent in the protagonist. I cannot say I have found any research which “proves” that schizophrenics are markedly honest, however there have been numerous studies exploring links and similarities between schizophrenia and autism, and some of these indicate that schizophrenics may display the same raw blunt (and often socially inappropriate) honesty that is often linked with autism (see Deweerdt 2016, Fields 2017, Goldstein et al 2002, and Yuhas 2017) – a form of honesty that could be summarised as a refusal to tell “white lies” in order to appease. For example, in my experience a person with schizophrenia will not “play games” by pretending that a horrendous choice of clothing looks wonderful, they won’t tell a “white lie” by saying a fat person looks slim, and they won’t pretend to agree with people if in fact they disagree with them. This aspect of my own experience is echoed by the views of Field (2017): I have always said that schizophrenics are the most honest people you will meet. They are one of the only groups of people who give you the truth as they see it. I know this statement may sound a little contradictory, since most of the time the things schizophrenics say aren't actually true or reflected in reality. However, to the schizophrenic person, it is very true. The protagonist does not like to play “pretend wife” as she puts it; she does not conform to the social convention of monogamy and does not try to hide this. She is happy living on her own and having numerous sexual experiences, and is honest about her intentions in this regard. It may therefore seem paradoxical that she does not cheat on her boyfriend Mike, but this too is part of her honesty (as well as being a reflection of the disciplined way in which she structures her life). Mike would be hurt if she were to cheat on him

172

by having sex with someone else without his knowledge, and the protagonist does not wish to damage or lose the relationship with Mike. The protagonist is medicated, and thanks to this she is now only accepting what she regards as tangible or evidentiary in order to cope with that which she previously thought was real. Although this is not mentioned directly, it is intended that the protagonist questions what is real and what is not in order to survive her diagnosis and cope.

Identity

While social skills and emotional engagement are traits often distorted or destroyed by schizophrenia, a person’s sense of identity is not necessarily destroyed; this can stay intact despite a diagnosis of schizophrenia (see Zandersen and Parnas, 2019; Aakre, Klingaman, and Docherty, 2015; Raballo and Parnas, 2012; Raballo, Saebye and Parnas, 2011). The basis for a person’s sense of identity can vary, but in my writing (and in my own life) I have tended to follow Fearon’s notion that markers of identity generally include “gender, sexuality, nationality, ethnicity” (1999, p.2). It could be argued that Whitlock’s Autographs implicitly extends this to include “Voice, Histories, Place and Space, Belief, [and] Childhood”, (p.ix) but Whitlock relates these categories in turn to “what might be conventionally understood as ethnic, Aboriginal, female, gay and other constructions of the self” (p.ix), so it seems reasonable to conclude that Fearon’s widely-cast net captures the main possibilities. I have mentioned that the protagonist’s honesty and forthrightness are a key aspect of her identity. When Mike proposes marriage this is not just a threat to her honesty (if she were to agree to marry him) but also a larger threat to her identity. The prospect of loss of identity frightens her so greatly that she does not want marriage to change her name and she feels anxious and threatened by the biblical notion of conforming to being “one flesh”, not least because she identifies herself as an atheist, believing that when “you die, you rot in the ground” and that existence can be summarised as “you live/you die”.

173

(She is also upset because Mike has always claimed to be atheist and she thus expected that he too would reject conventional notions of relationships). Becoming part of a new family and taking on her partner’s name is a frightening prospect for her. She enjoys the emotional distance she has from families, including her own, and in her view the institution of marriage involves families and friends from both sides and other societal expectations that she simply does not wish to fulfil. She does not want children and does not see the reason that she should change herself and try to be a wife. In this respect the protagonist is a reflection of myself, for my current partner (and previous partner) lived in our own houses, and I found it better for my happiness to have the space of not having a boyfriend around 24/7. The marriage proposal from Mike is a fiction (in relation to my autobiographical experience) but it serves to highlight and greatly dramatise the way the protagonist’s sense of identity seems infringed by this. Although she likes affection and sex, she does not want to be expected to fulfil particular societal expectations. The protagonist frames much of her sense of identity through her attitudes to sexuality and her forthright commitment to respecting sexual diversity. She is therefore shown to be engaging with people from homosexual to transsexual, even to paedophilic people, and shows little or no judgement toward their behaviour because she accepts this as “the way they are”. It is important to realise – and I hope Existential Skelton implies this successfully – that the protagonist’s attitudes in this respect are driven by her mind rather than emotions. Being unable to participate in emotions in any depth, the protagonist is not swayed by emotional sympathy for those whose sexuality leads them to be marginalised: her insistence that they deserve respect and fair treatment is an intellectual conviction based upon strong convictions about the importance of human rights. This allows the protagonist to define her identity not in terms of being “caring” or “compassionate” but rather in relation to liberal principles. The protagonist is also represented as having formed a sense of identity based upon race, but this is a more fictionalised trait I have attributed to her in order to reflect the sometimes paradoxical nature of schizophrenic thinking –

174

the idea that, as Field (2017) puts it, “most of the time the things schizophrenics say aren't actually true or reflected in reality. However, to the schizophrenic person, it is very true”. Though I disagree with Field’s use of “most (I would say “some”), the protagonist’s behaviour in regard to ethnicity is an example of this. The protagonist likes to make a point of being “mixed” race when she clearly is not, inviting the reader to wonder why she does not identify with her whiteness and does in effect misrepresent her race and ethnicity. It is open to the reader to view this as an indication that she may be edging toward borderline delusional thinking (which would reflect her schizophrenia), but it is also open to the reader to see this as a kind of “over-reaching” in the expression of her liberal principles, an over-identification with the marginalised. What she believes to be true may not necessarily be the case, but this does not mean that she is lying, it just shows that her view of reality is unique.

Bethany

The protagonist of Existential Skelton is very structured in her approach to living and this is how she is able to cope with a stressful world. In this respect she is a reflection of myself as a schizophrenic, for I have found that structure, organisation and routine have been very important to how I manage myself and my life in the community. In contrast, the character Bethany is represented as very disorganised and as having a lack of structure in her life. Bethany was also devised in part to reflect upon issues of self-harm and suicidal inclinations. Schizophrenic people are prone to self-harm and suicide, though I have never experienced this myself living with schizophrenia. Haw et al (2005) state that “Deliberate self-harm (DSH) is a strong predictor of suicide in schizophrenia” (p. 50) and observe that there are many reasons why deliberate self-harm in the schizophrenic individual is prevalent. According to them, family history of deliberate self-harm does not appear to be a precursor. They suggest that the positive symptoms of schizophrenia (such as delusions, and other characteristics of the disorder) do not play a part, though the negative symptoms of schizophrenia might. Negative symptoms of

175

schizophrenia (such as emotional blunting and depression) seems to be the reason self-harm and suicide might exist in the schizophrenic individual (p.50). Part of Bethany’s role in the novel is to indicate that, although the protagonist of Existential Skeleton does not actually vocalise it, the protagonist does offer a suicide risk. This is apparent in the protagonist’s reaction to self- harm attempts by others such as Bethany. She shows little or no sympathy toward Bethany (saying “Boo hoo, I am thinking of the world’s smallest violin”), not because she does not understand but rather as a means of blocking out her own thoughts of suicide. She wants to live and the need for survival is strong, but her impatience toward others shows that she is not comfortable with anything which awakens these notions of suicide in herself. The opening line of the novel, “Mother died today, or maybe it was yesterday”, shows that death is on her mind from the outset. Later in the text she does vocalise the issue by quoting Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “To be, or not to be”, suggesting that she has not yet decided the answer to that question. I have personal experience with self-harm and suicide in others that were not on the schizophrenic spectrum, and I felt it important to represent this through Bethany (who is represented as having personality disorders, not schizophrenia). Bethany is an autofiction creation, loosely based on two real- life people that I have lived with who both had personality disorders, but blended with fictionalising based even more loosely on the behaviours and attitudes of others I have known who have had issues with self-harm and suicide. Personality disorders differ from schizophrenia, because disorders like schizophrenia (and bipolar) are the result of chemical imbalances in the brain (at least according to many theories) whereas personality disorders are psychologically based due to environmental aspects. This means that a personality disorder is more about someone’s upbringing and maladjusted personality. In 2013, a close friend from Brisbane committed suicide because she was no longer able to cope with her post traumatic stress disorder. I attended the funeral and apparently she’d recently had a relationship breakdown and had moved far away from her friends. The tragic thing was that she’d left behind five children who had no understanding of why she had done

176

this. She had spoken with me previously about her apathy and depressive state and how life had no longer seemed worth living. Two of my other friends with personality disorders often turned to self-harm when they were struggling with conflict or depressive states. I decided to include Bethany in Existential Skeleton to shed light on suicide and self-harm and at the same time establish that these were not just risks for those with schizophrenia. I wanted Bethany to provide a contrast to my protagonist, inasmuch as Bethany actually self- harmed whereas the protagonist did not. There is no clear-cut medication that helps personality disorders and those affected often need to go through years of psychological therapy in order to learn how to cope in the world around them. Though psychological therapy helps schizophrenic people to a degree, their quality of life is mostly improved with medication. For example, in relation to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Gratz and Tull (2012) state that: Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder characterized by the development and persistence of re-experiencing, avoidant, and hyperarousal symptoms following direct or indirect exposure to a traumatic event. PTSD is a serious clinical concern, associated with considerable functional impairment, high rates of reoccurring psychiatric disorders and heightened levels of numerous self destructive and health compromising behaviours including suicide attempts.... (p.19) My friend who was plagued with PTSD eventually committed suicide and this tangentially reflected in the suicide of Crystal in Existential Skeleton. The protagonist in Existential Skeleton does not attend the funeral (whereas in real life I did attend); her non-attendance is intended to show that she could not process the suicide emotionally in a normal way. The protagonist is impatient with those who self-harm because she does not understand it: she thinks that deliberate self-harm is a cry for attention and by contrast sees suicide as a separate and different action which ends suffering in an individual.

177

Mike

Part of Mike’s function is to represent a contrast to Emanuel. One aspect of this juxtaposition is that whilst Emanuel cannot deal with schizophrenia, Mike is a representation of someone who can. The character Mike is very much a product of autofiction, for he is an amalgam of three of my best relationships, all of which were with men who were sufficiently mature in character as to be able to handle my diagnosis and take schizophrenia in stride. Mike’s non- judgemental approach to schizophrenia helps the schizophrenic individual grow and develop. It is also implied to that Mike and the protagonist are only children which (in my personal view and observations) explains their understanding of each other and mutual respect. The protagonist finds family intervention on relationships destructive, and Mike has deliberately protected and distanced the protagonist from his family, understanding that partners’ families had created problems for the protagonist in previous relationships. Mike and Emanuel also represent different attitudes toward love and romance, and the protagonist’s attitude to these constructs. Emanuel’s outlook is traditional and conventional: he professes to love the protagonist and is intent upon a conventional relationship which not only involves close contact with his family but winning and maintaining their “approval”. However, despite his supposed love for the protagonist, Emanuel does not try to protect her from ridicule; he expects her to change in order to pre-empt this kind of judging, and in doing this he places her under extreme pressure to play at being something she is not, and risk her sense of identity in the process. He even expects the protagonist to be able to “snap out” of her schizophrenic episode. Mike, by contrast, does not profess romantic love for the protagonist but by the end of the novel it is clear that he does feel for her deeply, as evidenced by the disastrously inappropriate but well-intentioned marriage proposal. This proposal is Mike’s attempt to protect the protagonist in her vulnerability, unfortunately without grasping the wider ramifications of the offer from her perspective. The central character may indeed be vulnerable because of the

178

schizophrenia, but she values her independence and does not want to lose a sense of identity to marriage.* It is my intention that readers will come to see Mike as more knowledgeable about how to approach the schizophrenic individual, and I hope this will encourage them to consider why this might be the case. Is it because Mike has had previous experience with schizophrenia? From an autobiographical perspective the answer implicit in the text might be yes, to the extent that the text may implicitly reflect the fact that my best three boyfriends had each had experience with schizophrenic individuals before meeting me. But I hope that the portrayal of Mike in Existential Skeleton makes it also possible for the reader to ponder if Mike understands schizophrenia because he is observing the protagonist without judgement and analysing carefully how to respond to her.

Intertextuality

Existential Skeleton contains numerous references to other texts – song lyrics, novels, plays, and films are all mentioned. These works are not included with the conventional intertextual motivation of setting up teasing and illuminating literary associations which might encourage a reader to think deeply about the relationship between works. The songs, films, and literary works mentioned in Existential Skeleton are mentioned primarily for reasons of historical accuracy – as authenticating brand-names, it could be said – not as seeds planted to grow into a vine that will intertwine with other works. (That is, there is no attempt to create the kind of inter-textuality which encourages one text to be read or interpreted in light of others.) I hope that most of these references will be familiar to the contemporary reader, so that she or he will be ______* Originally, I had the protagonist living with Mike and then a marriage proposal progressing out of that. However, I felt that the marriage proposal had less impact when living with the individual than it would have on two separate individuals who have their own respective places and spaces.

179

able to draw upon their knowledge of, say, Fight Club, to form a better understanding of why and how this work holds a certain significance at particular points in the protagonist’s life – but the primary reason for mentioning this or any other film or song is because that is the particular song or play or film that might resonate for a schizophrenic person in certain circumstances in contemporary Western Australia. To put it another way, if the protagonist reaches for Corn Flakes rather than Rice Bubbles, this is not intended to spur the reader to check Corn Flakes packets for hidden meanings; it is just a reflection of the historical reality that in my place at this time (in my experience) a person like my protagonist would reach for Corn Flakes (rather than, say, a bowl of whey). The situation is not very different in relation to the references to the Camus novel, The Outsider (L’Etranger) (1942). This novel is used as a “hook”, as a way to give a literary frame to Existential Skeleton, not as a strong hint to the reader to explore the novel’s ideas (such as absurdism or existentialism) to great depth, or to draw parallels with Camus’ time-period. For the protagonist, L’Etranger is a book which happens to “resonate” with her own experience, especially in its portrayal of Meursault’s flat, blunted response to the death of his mother. The references to numerous song lyrics should also be viewed in the same way. Throughout my experience with schizophrenia I found music immensely beneficial – as stated earlier, I felt that “music saved my life”. Song- lyrics were like modern day poetry to me. During the height of my psychosis, music created meaning through the messages that were present in lyrics. Lyrics transmitted meaningful messages for me and helped me to cope with my schizophrenia. However, during the psychotic turn I believed that these songs were transmitting messages especially for me and were directing how I should live in the world. Interestingly, when I was medicated music did not lose its meaning, but the meaning shifted from personal to a more general form. I

180

began to question why certain songs were written and asked myself what message the artists wanted to get across. Songs about peace, activism, and environmentalism were especially important to me, and I listened avidly to John Lennon, Midnight Oil, Michael Jackson, and John Farnham, sharing their sense that a better world was possible and identifying with the active pursuit of this ideal. Music for my protagonist is something she considers to be as important in her identity as literature, and she finds political meaning in the music she listens to, from John Farnham’s “The Voice” (which expresses her anti-war pacifist stance) through to Madonna’s “Material Girl” (which is a representation of the sort of attitudes the protagonist opposes in some women’s behaviour). By referring to Michael Jackson’s anti-racist song “They Don’t Care About Us” she celebrates her disdain for racial (and any other) discrimination. One of the most difficult mental issues that someone with schizophrenia can struggle with, when living in the community, is suicidal feelings. The protagonist experience of this most difficult of internal struggles is reflected when she refers to Simon and Garfunkel’s “Richard Cory” and the original poem written by Edwin Arlington Robinson. The poem and the song both refer to Richard Cory as a wealthy, successful and affluent person who, despite all his power and wealth, goes home one night and kills himself. The people in the poem and the song do not understand why Richard Cory chooses to end his own life when he has apparently got everything going for him. However, my protagonist understands that wealth and materialism such as that possessed by Richard Cory (and reflected in Madonna’s “Material Girl”) do not create happiness; she empathises with the suicide of Richard Cory as she herself at this point in the story has not yet decided whether she will terminate her own life.

181

CONCLUSION

The centrepiece of this PhD thesis is the novel Existential Skeleton, for this work expresses my experience of schizophrenia in the fullest and most nuanced way. This is because Existential Skeleton is able to draw upon the range of utterances available to the novelist, including implication, inference, juxtapositions, paradoxes, deliberately provocative ambiguities, and so forth. Existential Skeleton is also able to draw directly upon my own experience, but at the same time make any appropriate autofictional transformations to that experience, and this has allowed me to explore my characters’ responses to situations I have not faced (or not in the exact-same circumstances) and this in turn allows me to investigate potentials and possibilities in my own behaviour and attitudes as well as exploring potentials and possibilities for my characters. The exegesis necessarily uses the more “linear” language of non-fiction discourse. This for me is a less fulfilling mode – “less fulfilling” because it forces me into being less nuanced – but I trust that the preceding discussion has been informative for the reader. I have sought to give an account of my own experiences with schizophrenia, allowing this account to retrospectively inform the reader’s understanding of the novel. I have also sought to give an account of my own research into topics relevant to the novel, accepting that views and ideas which I might regard as “my own” (and thus as “natural” or “untutored”) have in fact been influenced by my reading. As I became confident in the writing of Existential Skeleton – that is, after I began to feel that I had established voice and pacing and structure for the narrative – I began to ponder wider matters of contextualisation. Chief amongst these were the need to “place” my work against existing narratives which are seen to reflect on schizophrenia, the need to understand how my work related to the notion of autobiography, and the need to find a way to account for the way my work draws upon yet departs from the autobiographical. The exegesis seeks to give an overview of my reading and thinking in these areas, and it offers the basis for concluding that my own

182

methodology is best described as that of autofiction, and that existing literary representations of schizophrenia constitute a limited and fragmented field of partial stories which leave room for new literary narratives about “post- hospitalisation”. This thesis uses “experience based knowledge” to make a contribution towards this emerging field. My particular focus on writing about mental illness became a way in which I could create a meaning and voice for those afflicted with such disorders as schizophrenia. The hardship of lack of support and near homelessness due to my disorder has taught me that you can work your way out of a bad place. Just as living on a shoe-string budget can teach you how to handle money, so living with a mental illness that turns your world upside down can teach you how to make sense of your world. Mental illness can be such a self-consuming thing that it is hard to see outside it at times; however, my experience is that focusing on the external rather than the internal and making changes, has meant that life became a lot more productive. I no longer look at myself as someone who is schizophrenic but rather as myself with a mental illness.

183

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aakre, J.M., Klingaman, E.A., and Docherty, N.M. (2015). “The Relationship Between Stigma Sentiments and Self-Identity of Individuals with Schizophrenia”. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal 38(2): 125-131.

Acton, H. (2010). “I am what I am? Existentialism and Homosexuality”. Existential Analysis: Journal of the Society for Existential Analysis. 21(2): 351- 364.

Adams, T.D. (2005). “Borderline Personality: Autobiography and Documentary in Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted”. Life Writing 2(2): 118- 121.

Altman, D. (2002). “Writing the Self”. Anthropological Quarterly. 75(2): 317- 321.

Aghevli, M.A., Blanchard, J.J., Horan, W.P. (2003). “The Expression and Experience of Emotion in Schizophrenia: A Study of Social Interactions”. Psychiatry Research 119(3): 261-270.

Aleman, A. (2017). “Treatment of negative symptoms: Where Do We Stand, and Where Do We Go?”. Schizophrenia Research 186: 55-62.

Alley, E. (1991). “’An Honest Record’: An Interview with Janet Frame”, Landfall 178: 154-168.

Anderson, C. (2016). Psych Central. .

Anderson, L. (2001). Autobiography: The New Critical Idiom. London: Routledge.

Anon. (2017). Self Harm. .

Anonymous. (2017). “First Person Account: Learning to Live With Schizoaffective Disorder: A Transformative Journey Toward Recovery”. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 44(1): 2-3.

Ash, S. (1993). “The Absolute, Distanced Image’: Janet Frame’s Autobiography”. Journal of New Zealand Literature 11: 21-39.

Bacia, J. (1994). Creating Popular Fiction. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.

184

Baha’u’llah. (1990). Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah. Willmette, IL: Baha’i Publishing Trust.

Baldwin, C. (2005). “Narrative, Ethics and People with Severe Mental Illness”. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 39: 1022-1029.

Barrington, J. (2000). Writing the Memoir. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.

Bellamy, M. (2003). “Thoughts of a Dying Atheist”. Absolution. [CD], Muse. Berlin: Taste Media Ltd.

BGW. (2002). “Graduate Student in Peril: A First Person Account of Schizophrenia”. Schizophrenia Bulletin 28(4): 745-55.

Bhuyan, D., Chaudhury, P.K., Saikia, H. (2017). “Mood, Motor, and Speech Abnormalities in Schizophrenia, Mania, and Other Psychotic Disorders: A Comparative Analysis”. Open Journal of Psychiatry and Applied Sciences. London December: 68-72.

Bird, Carmel. (1996). Dear Writer: The Classic Guide to Writing Fiction. Sydney: Vintage.

Blackham, H.J. (1952). Six Existential Thinkers. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Bowling, L.E. (1950). “What is Stream of Consciousness Technique?”. Modern Language Association 65(4): 333-345.

Bradbury, B. (2006). “Like a Virgin-mother? Materialism and Maternalism in Songs of Madonna.”. Cultural Studies 6(1): 73-96.

Bressert, S. (2017-a). “Paranoid Personality Disorder”. . ---. (2017-b). “Schizotypal Personality Disorder”. .

Brooks, Terry. (2003). Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life. New York: Ballantine.

Brothers, The. (1987). “When Will I be Famous?”. Push [CD], Bros. London: CBS.

Broughton, W.S. (1992). “‘With Myself as Myself’: A Reading of Janet Frame’s Autobiography”. Ring of Fire: Essays on Janet Frame. Ed. Jeanne Delbaere. Sydney: Dangaroo Press, 1992.

185

Brown, R. (2003). “Beyond the Myth: Janet Frame Unframed”. Journal of New Zealand Literature 21: 122-139.

Bulman, Colin. (2007). Creative Writing: A Guide and Glossary to Fiction Writing. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Burroway, J. with Stuckey-French, E. and N. (2011). Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft. New York: Longman.

Camus, A. (1942). The Outsider. London: Hamish Hilton, 1982. (First published in French as L’Etranger, 1942.)

Capote, T. (2000). In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and its Consequences. Melbourne: Penguin, 2008.

Cascella, N.G., Gerner, G.J., Fieldstone, S.C., Sawa, A., and Schretlen, D.J. (2011). “The Insula-claustrum Region and Delusions in Schizophrenia” Schizophrenia Research 133(1-3): 77-81.

Casterton, J. (1998). Creative Writing: A Practical Guide. London: Macmillan.

Caverero, A. Relating Narratives: Storytelling and Selfhood. London: Routledge, 1997.

Cawthorne, N. (2002). The World’s Greatest Cults. London: Chancellor Press.

Célestin, R. (1997) “Interview with Serge Doubrovsky: Autoficton and Beyond”, Sites: The Journal of Twentieth-Century/Contemporary French Studies revue d'études français, 1(2): 397-405.

Chamberlin, J. (1990). “Challenging the Therapeutic State: Critical Perspectives on Psychiatry and the Mental Health System”. The Journal of Mind and Behavior 11(3-4): 323-336.

Chovil, I. (2000). “First Person Account: I and I, Dancing Fool, Challenge You the World to a Duel”. Schizophrenia Bulletin 26(3): 745-747.

Colmer, J. (1991). “The Autobiographical Self and Other Worlds in Australian Writing”. Perceiving Other Worlds. Ed. Edwin Thumboo. Singapore: Times Academic Press, 105-114.

Colori, S. (2018). “First Person Account: Fear, Faith, Hope, and Courage”. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 44(4): 703-705.

Couser, T. (2009). Signifying Bodies: Disability in Contemporary Life Writing. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

186

Cox, A. (2000). “Writing the Self”. The Creative Writing Handbook. Ed. J. Singleton and M. Luckhurst. New York: Palgrave, 77-99.

Cox, G. (2012). The Existentialist’s Guide to Death, the Universe, and Nothingness. London & New York: Continuum International Publishing Group.

Dawkins, R. (2006). The God Delusion. London: Black Swan.

Dean, A. (2017). “’To be novelized’: An Investigation of Autofiction & How it Operates in Gwenaelle Aubry’s No One”. Portland, Portland State University PDXScholar, 1-24.

De Beauvoir, S. (1958). Memoireś d'une Jeune Fille Rangeé . Paris: Gallimard.

De Heer, R. (Director). (2002) The Tracker [Video]. Adelaide: Adelaide Festival of Arts. ---. (Director). (2006) Ten Canoes [Video]. Adelaide: Adelaide Film Festival.

Delany, Samuel R. (2005). About Writing: Seven Essays, Four Letters, and Five Interviews. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.

Delarez, M. (2002). Manifold Utopia: The Novels of Janet Frame. Copenhagen: Rodopi.

Deweerdt, S. (2016). “Brain Tissue Study Bolsters Autism, Schizophrenia Link”. Spectrum .

Di Giovanni, Norman Thomas, Daniel Halpern and Frank McShane (eds). (1974). Borges on Writing. London: Allen Lane.

Dillard, Annie. (1989). The Writing Life. New York: Harper and Row.

Disher, Gary. (2001), Writing Fiction: An Introduction to the Craft. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.

Dix, H. (2017). “Autofiction: The Forgotten Face of French Theory”. Word and Text: A Journal of Literary Studies and Linguistics 7, 69-85.

Donaldson, E.J. (2018). Literatures of Madness: Disability Studies and Mental Health. Palgrave Macmillan.

Doubrousky, S. (1977). Fils. Paris: Hachette. ---. (2001). Un Amour de Soi. Paris: Folio.

Dunn, Irina. (2002). The Writing Guide. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.

187

Dykstra, T. “First Person Account: How I Cope”. Schizophrenia Bulletin 23(4) (1997): 697-99.

Dylan, B. (1964). “The Times they are A-Changin’”. The Times They are A- Changin’. [CD], Bob Dylan. New York: Colombia Records.

Eakin, J.P. (2004). “Breaking Rules: The Consequences of Self-Narration”. The Ethics of Life Writing. Ed. John Paul Eakin. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1-18.

Earnshaw, Steven. (2007). The Handbook of Creative Writing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Egan, T. (1989). “The Drover’s Boy”. Warragul [CD], John Williamson. Sydney: Fable.

Farmer, F. (1974). Will There Really Be a Morning? New York: Putnam.

Fearon, J.D. (1999). What is Identity (As We Now Use the Word)? .

Fields, R. (2017). “How a Schizophrenic Mind Works”. .

Fincher, D. (Director). (1999). Fight Club [Video]. Los Angeles: Fox 2000 Pictures.

Finger, A. (2005). “Writing Disabled Lives: Beyond the Singular”. Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 120(2): 610-615.

Finn, N. (1988). “Into Temptation”. Temple of Low Men [CD], Crowded House. Los Angeles and Melbourne: Capitol.

Finney, V. (1993). “What Does ‘Janet Frame’ Mean?”. Journal of New Zealand Literature 11: 193-205.

Foudraine, J. (1971). Not Made of Wood: A Psychiatrist Discovers his own Profession. New York: Macmillan.

Fox, V. (2001). “First Person Account: Schizophrenia, Medication and Outpatient Commitment”. Schizophrenia Bulletin 27(1): 177-78. ---. (2002). “First Person Account: A Glimpse of Schizophrenia”. Schizophrenia Bulletin 28(2): 363-65.

Frame, J. (1991). “An Honest Record”. Landfall 178: 152-159.

188

---. (1990). Janet Frame: The Complete Autobiography. London: The Women’s Press Ltd. ---. (1961). Owls Do Cry. London: Pegasus Press. ---. (1963). Scented Gardens for the Blind. New York: George Braziller, 1980. ---. (1980). Faces in the Water. London: Pegasus Press.

Fromm-Reichmann, F. (1946). "Remarks on the Philosophy of Mental Disorder". Psychiatry 9: 293-309.

Fullwinder, S.P. (1982). Technicians of the Finite: The Rise and Decline of the Schizophrenic in American Thought, 1840-1960. Westport: Greenwood Press.

Garden, R. (2010). “Disability and Narrative: New Directions for Medicine and the Medical Humanities”. Medical Humanities 36(2): 70-74.

Garret, P., Hirst, R. and Moginie, J. (1987). “Beds are Burning”. Diesel and Dust [CD], Midnight Oil. Melbourne: Albert Studios. --- et al. (1990). “Blue Sky Mine”. Blue Sky Mining [CD], Midnight Oil. Sydney: Columbia.

Glenn, M. (ed.) (1974). Voices from the Asylum. New York: Harper Colophon.

Goldstein, G., Minshew, N.J., Allen, D.N., Seaton, B.E. (2002). “High- functioning Autism and Scizophrenia: A Comparison of an Early and Late Onset Neurodevelopmental Disorder”. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology 17(5): 461-475.

Good, J.M. (1981). “William Taylor, Robert Southey, and the Word ‘Autobiography’”. The Wordsworth Circle 12(2): 125-127.

Goodwin, G.M., Price, J., De Bodinat, C., Laredo, J. (2017). “Emotional Blunting with Antidepressant Treatments: A Survey among Depressed Patients”. Journal of Affect Disorders October: 31-35.

Gratz, K.L. and Tull, M.T. (2012). “Exploring the Relationship of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Deliberate Self-harm: The Moderating Roles of Borderline and Avoidant Personality Disorders”. Psychiatry Research 199(1): 19-23.

Greenberg, J. (1986). I Never Promised you a Rose Garden. London: Pavanne.

Grenville, Kate. (2001). Writing from Start to Finish. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.

Grinnell, R. (2016). Psych Central. .

Gur, R.E. et al. (2006). “Flat Affect in Schizophrenia: Relation to Emotion Processing and Neurocognitive Measures”. Schizophrenia Bulletin 32(2): 1-9.

189

Hand, S. (2002). Michel Leiris: Writing the Self. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hannah, D. (1992). “Faces in the Water: Case-history or Work of Fiction?”. Ring of Fire: Essays on Janet Frame. Ed. Jeanne Delbaere. Sydney: Dangaroo Press.

Hasson, K. (1996). The Unstable Manifold: Janet Frame’s Challenge to Determinism. Lund, Sweden: Lund University Press.

Haw, C., Hawton, K., Sutton, L., Sinclair, J. and Deeks, J. (2005). “Schizophrenia and Deliberate Self-Harm: A Systematic Review of Risk Factors”. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behaviour (35) 1: 50-62.

Hay, C. (1980). “Down Under”. Business as Usual [CD], Men At Work. Sydney: Columbia. ---- Hay, C. (1980). “Who could it be now?” Business as Usual [CD], Men At Work. Sydney: Columbia.

Henry, J.D. & Green, M.J., de Lucia, A. et al (2007). “Emotional Dysregulation in Schizophrenia: Reduced Amplification of Emotional Expression is Associated with Emotional Blunting”. Schizophrenia Research (95). Sydney: University of New South Wales, 197-204.

Holy Bible: The Revised Version. London: Oxford University Press, 1964.

Horn, T. (1980). “Video Killed the Radio Star”. The Age of Plastic [CD], The Buggles. Manchester: Island Records.

Hornstein, G.A. (2017). Agnes’s Jacket: A Psychologist’s Search for the Meanings of Madness. New York: Routledge.

Hunter, T. and Pigott, J. (1988). “Age of Reason”. Age of Reason [CD], John Farnham. Melbourne: Sony BMG.

Isaacs, C. (2015). Old Love. Perth: The Blue Room Theatre.

Ito, F., Matsumoto, K., Miyakoshi, T., Ohmuro, N., Uchida, T., Matsuoka, H. (2013). “Emotional Processing During Speech Communication and Positive Symptoms in Schizophrenia”. Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 67(7): 526-531.

Jackson, M. (1995). History [CD]. Los Angeles: Epic Records Group. --- and Bottrell, B. (1991). “Black or White”. History [CD], Michael Jackson. Los Angeles: Epic Records Group, 1995.

190

--- and Richie, L. (1985). “We Are the World”. Free Sin [CD], USA For Africa. Los Angeles: A & M Recording Studios.

Jason, P.K. and Lefcowitz, A.B. (1999). Creative Writer's Handbook. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Jenkins, J. H. (2004). “Schizophrenia as a Paradigm Case for Understanding Fundamental Human Processes”. Schizophrenia, Culture and Subjectivity: Edge of Experience. Ed. Janis Hunter Jenkins and Robert John Barrett. London: Cambridge University Press, 2-29.

Jepson, J. (2016). “First Person Account: Surviving the Voices”. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 44(4): 706.

Jones, E.H. (2009). “Serge Doubrovsky: Life, Writing, Legacy”, L’Esprit Createur 49(3): 1-7.

Jones, T. (Director). (1979). Life of Brian [Video]. London: HandMade Films.

Jouan-Westlund, A. (1997). “Serge Doubrovsky’s Autofiction: de l'autobiographie considérée comme une tauromachie / Autobiography as Bullfighting”. Sites: The Journal of Twentieth-Century/Contemporary French Studies revue d'études français, 1(2): 415-432.

Kaysen, S. (1993). Girl, Interrupted. New York: Random House.

Kershner, I. [Director]. (1980). The Empire Strikes Back [Video]. San Francisco: Lucasfilm.

Keyes, Daniel. (1999). Algernon, Charlie and I: A Writer’s Journey. Boca Raton, Fl.: Challcrest Press.

King, M. (2000). Wrestling with the Angel: A Life of Janet Frame. Harmondsworth: Viking.

King, Stephen. (2001). On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. London: Hodder and Stoughton.

Klingler, D.E. and Johnson, J.H. and Williams, T.A. (1977). “A Validational Study of the WIST as a Group-administered Instrument for Assessment of Schizophrenic Thinking”. Journal of Clinical Psychology 33(3): 658-661.

Kinross-Smith, Graeme. (1992). Writer: A Working Guide for New Writers. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Knorr, Jeff and Tim Schell (eds). (2001). Mooring Against the Tide: Writing Fiction and Poetry. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

191

Konrad, C. (2008). “Camus”. Amber Contains the Sun: A Poetry Anthology. Ed Smith, F. et al. Perth: Department of Culture & the Arts, 41.

Kreinin, A. (2013). “‘Hearing Voices’ in Schizophrenia: Whose Voices Are They?”. Medical Hypotheses 80(4): 352-356.

Kruger, S.F. (2001). AIDS Narrative: Gender and Sexuality, Fiction and Science. New York: Garland Publishing.

LaBute, N. (2015). Mercy Seat. Perth: The Blue Room Theatre.

Lawn, J. (1993). “Docile Bodies: Normalization and the Asylum in Owls Do Cry.’ Journal of New Zealand Literature 11: 178-187.

Leebron, F. and Levy, A. (1995). Creating Fiction: A Writer's Companion. New York: Harcourt Brace.

LeJeune, P. (1989). ‘The Autobiographical Pact”. On Autobiography. Ed. Paul John Eakin. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 3-30.

Lennon, J. (1971). Imagine [CD]. New York: Ascot Sound Studios.

Lewis, D. (1994). “Schizophrenia and Disordered Neural Circuitry”. The Schizophrenia Bulletin. Ed. Anthony S. David and John C. Cutting. Hove: Laurence Erlbaum Association, 39-49.

Macris, A. (2002). “The Narrator and The Narrative Modes in the Novel”. The Writer’s Reader. Ed. B. Walker. Sydney: Halstead Press, 58-66.

Madonna. (1984). Like a Virgin [CD]. Burbank, CA: Warner Bros.

Marie, B.S. (1964). “Universal Soldier”. It’s My Way [LP]. Malvern: Vanguard.

Marsh, N. (2007). “Taking the Maggie: Money, Sovereignty and Masculinity in British Fiction of the Eighties”. Modern Fiction Studies 53(4): 845-866.

Marshall, E. (2006). “Borderline Girlhoods: Mental Illness, Adolescence and Feminity in Girl, Interrupted”. The Lion and the Unicorn 30: 117-133.

Martin, D. (2004). “Janet Frame, 79, Writer Who Explored Madness”. New York Times 30 January, p.23.

Marynard, K. (1996). “Eulogy”. Aenima [CD], Tool. Los Angeles: Zoo Entertainment.

McCubbin, R. (2015). The Bookbinder. Perth: The Blue Room Theatre.

192

Mercia, G. (1993). “A Simple Everyday Glass: The Autobiographies of Janet Frame”. Journal of New Zealand Literature. 1(1): 41-47.

Mercia, G. (1994). Janet Frame: Subversive Fictions. Dunedin: University of Otago Press.

Miller, P. (1994). Writing Your Life. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.

Minot, S. (1998).: Three Genres: The Writing of Poetry, Fiction, and Drama. New York: Prentice-Hall.

Modrow, J. (1995). How to Become a Schizophrenic: The Case Against Biological Psychiatry. Everett, Washington: Apollyon Press.

Muecke, S. (2002). “The Fall: Fictocritical Writing”. The Writer’s Reader. Ed. B. Walker. Sydney: Halstead Press, 125-134.

Mueser, K.T., Bellack, A.S., and Brady, U. (1990). “Hallucinations in Schizophrenia”. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica (July).

Nassar, S. (1998). A Beautiful Mind. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Newman, J. (1991). “Autobiography: The Limitations of the Quest”. Journal of Narrative Technique 21(1): 83-97.

Noyce, P. [Director]. (2002). Rabbit Proof Fence [Video]. Adelaide: Rumbalara Films.

Olivier, R.M., Kilian, S., Chiliza, B., Asmal, L., Oosthuizen, P.P., Emsley, R., Kidd, M. (2017). “Cognitive-perceptual Deficits and Symptom Correlates in First-episode Schizophrenia”. South African Journal of Psychiatry August: 1-6.

Opbroek, A., Delgado, P.L., Laukes, C., McGahuey, C., Katsanis, J., Moreno, F.A., Manber, R. (2002). “Emotional Blunting Associated with SSRI-induced Sexual Dysfunction. Do SSRIs Inhibit Emotional Responses?”. International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology 5(2): 147-152.

Orwell, G. (1945). Animal Farm. London: Secker and Warburg.

Paich, D. and Porcaro, J. (1982). Toto IV [CD], Toto. Los Angles: Sunset Studios & Ocean Way Studios.

Paine, T. (1794). The Age of Reason: Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge Library Collection.

Palahniuk, C. (1996). Fight Club. New York: W.W. Norton.

193

Pascal, R. (2016). “What is Autobiography?” Design and Truth in Autobiography. London: Routledge.

Peretti, H. et al (1993). Promises and Lies [CD], UB40. London: Virgin Records.

Perl, S. and Schwartz, M. (2006). Writing True: The Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

Perry, H. W. (1974). “Introduction”. Schizophrenia as a Human Process. New York: W.W. Norton, xi-xxxi.

Pinsker, S. (2006). “Unraveling the Yarn: Intertexuality, Gender, and Cultural Critique in the Stories of Dvora Baron.”. Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies and Gender Issues 11: 244-279.

Polkey, P. (ed.) (1999). Women's Lives into Print: the Theory, Practice and Writing of Feminist Auto/biography. Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Prain, V. (1994). “Forging Selves and Salvaging Forms: Reading Australian Autobiographical Fiction”. Meridian 13(1): 39-48.

Price, J. and Goodwin, G.M. (2009). “Emotional Blunting or Reduced Reactivity Following Remission of Major Depression”. Medicographia 31: 152- 156.

Raballo, A. and Parnas, J. (2012). “Examination of Anomalous Self- Experience: Initial Study of the Structure of Self-Disorders in Schizophrenia Spectrum”. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 200(7): 577-583. ---, Saebye D., Parnas, J. (2011). “Looking at the Schizophrenia Spectrum Through the Prism of Self-disorders: An Empirical Study”. Schizophrenia Bulletin 37(2): 344–351.

Rabinowitz, J. (2018). “Treating Negative Symptoms of Schizophrenia”. Current Psychiatry 17(12): 19-23.

Raoul, V. et al (eds) (2007). Unfitting Stories: Narrative Approaches to Disease, Disability and Trauma. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

Richardson, B. (1994). “I etcetera: On the Poetics and Ideology of Multipersoned Narratives”. Style 28(3): 312-328.

Roberts, D. E. (1959). Existentialism and Religious Belief. New York: Oxford University Press.

194

Robison, E. A. (1897). “Richard Cory”. In Children of the Night. Maine: Project Gutenberg.

Roche, E. et al (2016). “The Prognostic Value of Formal Thought Disorder Following First Episode Psychosis”. Schizophrenia Research 178(1-3): 29-34.

Rodriguez del Barrio, L. (2007). “Space, Temporality and Subjectivity in a Narrative of Psychotic Experience”. Unfitting Stories: Narrative Approaches to Disease, Disability and Trauma. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 139-147.

Rogers, A.G. (1996). A Shining Affliction: A Story of Harm and Healing in Psychotherapy. London: Penguin Books. ---. (2007). The Unsayable: The Hidden Language of Trauma. New York: Ballantine Books. ---. (2016). Incandescent Alphabets: Psychosis and the Enigma of Language. London: Karnac Books.

Root Jr, R.J. and Steirnberg, M. (1999). The Fourth Genre: Contemporary Writers of/on Creative Nonfiction. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Rosen, W.G. et al. (1984). “Positive and Negative Symptoms in Schizophrenia”. Schizophrenia Bulletin 9: 277-284.

Ross, C.A. (2004). Schizophrenia: Innovations in Diagnosis and Treatment. New York: New York University Press.

Saks, E.R. (2008). The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness. New York: Hachette Books.

Sanders, D. and Wong, S. (2014). Status Room. Perth: The Blue Room Theatre.

Sartre, J.P. (1947). Existentialism. New York: Philosophical Library.

Schneider, B. (2007). “Constructing a ‘Schizophrenic’ Identity”. Unfitting Stories: Narrative Approaches to Disease, Disability and Trauma. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 130-137.

Schwartz, S. (1996). “Dancing in the Asylum: The Uncanny Truth of the Madwoman in Janet Frame’s Autobiographical Fiction”. Ariel 27(4): 113-127.

Sen, I. [Director]. (2002). Beneath Clouds [Video]. Sydney: Australian Film Finance Corporation.

Shakespeare, W. (1736). The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. London and New York: Nelson Doubleday, 1974.

195

Shands, K.W. et al (2015). Writing the Self: Essays on Autobiography and Autofiction. Stockholm: Elanders.

Shelley, M. (1818). Frankenstein. London: Pan Books, 1994.

Simon, P. (1964). The Sounds of Silence [CD], Simon & Garfunkel. New York: The Columbia Studio Recordings. ---. (1965). Leaves that are Green [CD], Simon & Garfunkel. Unknown: CBS. ---. (1990). The Rhythm of the Saints [CD], Paul Simon. Burbank, CA: Warner Bros.

Small, J. (1997). More than Skin Deep [CD], Toni Wood. Brisbane: Toni Wood.

Smith, R., Dempsey, M. and Tolhurst, L. (1984). Standing on a Beach [CD], The Cure. UK: Fiction Records.

Smith, S. and Watson, J. (2001). Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Solomon, R. (1974). Existentialism. New York: Random House.

Sommer, R. and Hall, R. (1958). “Alienation and Mental Illness”. American Sociological Review 23(4): 418-420.

Sting, and Knopfler, M. (1985). Brothers in Arms [CD], Dire Straits. Burbank, CA: Warner Bros.

Stoker, B. (1897). Dracula. New York: Clydesdale Press, 2018.

Sweet, L.H., Primeau, M., Fichtner, C.G., and Lutz, G. (1998). “Dissociation of Affect Recognition and Mood State from Blunting in Patients with Schizophrenia”. Psychiatry Research 81(3): 301-308.

Szasz, T. (1961). The Myth of Mental Illness. New York: Harper and Row.

Thompson, C. & Parsons, A. and Reid, K. et al. (1986). Whispering Jack [CD], John Farnham. Sydney: Sony BMG.

Tolton, J.C. (2004). “First Person Account: How Insight Poetry Helped Me to Overcome My Illness”. Schizophrenia Bulletin 30(2): 469-472.

Torrell, M.R. (2011). “Plural Singularities: The Disability Community in Life Writing Texts”. The Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies, 5(3): 321-337.

196

Troisfontaines, R. (1949). Existentialism and Christian Thought. Westminster, London: Dacre Press.

Tuttle, L. (2005). Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction. London: A. and C. Black.

Usami, M. and Katsuki, N. and Asahara, C. et. Al. (2003). “Proceedings of the 20th Annual Conference of the Japanese Association for Adolescent Psychotherapy, 16 November 2002, Tokyo, Japan”. Psychiatry and Clinic Neurosciences 57(5): 37-42.

Wallace-Crabbe, C. (1988). “Autobiography”. The Penguin New Literary History of Australia. Ed. Laurie Hergenhan. Melbourne: Penguin, 560-571.

Wearne, H. (2002). “Autobiography”. The Writer’s Reader. Autobiography. Ed. B. Walker. Sydney: Halstead Press, 94-103.

Weiner, S. (2017). “First Person Account: The Details in Schizophrenia”. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 44(4): 707-709.

Weiner, S.K. (2003). “First Person Account: Living with Delusions and Effects of Schizophrenia”. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 29(4): 877-879.

Whitlock, G. (1992). “Recent Australian Autobiography: A Review Essay”. Australian Literary Studies 15(4): 261-269. --- (ed.) (1996). Autographs: Contemporary Australian Autobiography. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press.

Wiggins, D. (1976). “Locke, Butler and The Stream of Consciousness: And Men as Natural Kind”. Philosophy 51: 131-158.

Wilhelm, Kate. (2005). Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop. Northampton, MA: Small Beer Press.

Williamson, J. (1989). Warragul [CD]. Melbourne: Fable.

Williamson, P. (2006). Mind, Brain, and Schizophrenia. New York: Oxford University Press.

Winthrop, H. (1967). “Alienation and Existentialism in relation to Literature and Youth”. The Journal of General Education, 18(4): 289-298.

Wood, M.E. (2013). Life Writing and Schizophrenia: Encounters at the Edge of Meaning. Amsterdam: Clio Medica. ---. (2015). The Writing on the Wall: Women’s Autobiography and the Asylum. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.

197

Yin-Chiang, C. (2014). “Violence and Aberration in the Age of Social Media: Transforming the Advanced Communication Technology into a Better Facilitative Tool”. IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine 3(4): 69-74.

Yuhas, D. (2017a). “Do Schizophrenia and Autism Share the Same Root?” Scientific American March 16 . ---. (2017b). “The Social Ties between Autism and Schizophrenia”. Scientific American July 24 < https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-social-ties- between-autism-and-schizophrenia/>.

Yunupingu, M. et al. (1991). Tribal Voice [CD], Yothu Yindi. Melbourne: Mushroom.

Zandersen, M., Parnas, J. (2019). “Identity Disturbance, Feelings of Emptiness, and the Boundaries of the Schizophrenia Spectrum”, Schizophrenia Bulletin 45(1): 106–113.

Zeshan, M. et al. (2018). “Factors Predicting Length of Stay in Adolescent Psychiatric Unit”. Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 27(2): 142-147.