The lyrics 'I get knocked down but I get up again' from the song Tubthumbing by Chumbawamba came to mind after I watched back a video I recorded in 2017 when I was struggling. At that time, my psychiatrist said, 'I'm doing my best to keep you alive right now'.
It was rough. Rapid cycling from mania then crashing into depression. I was unable to drive, unable to prepare a basic meal, unable to work at all. Now I can drive when I am up to it on quieter roads, can work around 8 hours per week, can usually prepare basic meals.
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I wasn't going to post further on this blog, as I am moving to my other blog on Soar Purpose and I am leaving years of (mostly mental health and disability) advocacy behind, to move forward.
Something huge has been announced, all over the news in New Zealand and Australia past few days. Policy has been changed at government level with negotiation between the two neighbouring countries. Kicked off by the vision and actions of a vulnerable person 10 years ago. Which snowballed to bring about change to help thousands of others. I want to explain in this post the beginnings of how this happened, which has been swept under the carpet. I learned this evening that there is a direct pathway for New Zealand citizens and permanent residents to become Australian citizens, with less restrictive eligibility requirements. For a reasonable fee, starting July 2023. The fee at time of writing this blog was less that Australian $500 with no complicated and very expensive (thousands of dollars) permanent resident stage first (that many had not pathway to start). There are still elibility criteria but they are much more relaxed than previously. I throw myself with great passion into projects but inevitably get burnt out. My mental health advocacy as Bipolar Courage is no exception. I have actually been burnt out with it for a long time. This is my last blog post for Bipolar Courage. (Update: I wrote a few more blog posts (there was still some stuff to process) and done now.)
My first blog post for Bipolar Courage was in 2019, expressing what a depressive episode felt like. Starting a blog was an attempt to distract me from that, when I had setbacks with working on my first novel, Pet Purpose: Your Unspoken Voice. Then I moved onto vlogging. Technically, my first advocacy vlogs were back in 2017, under a different channel, since deleted. Some of that footage, when I was off meds, is in a playlist on Bipolar Courage. In just over an hour, it will be 2022 in New Zealand. I have been jotting down some notes and preparing some photos over the past 4 hours with the aim to write a final blog post for the year (all improvised really).
I will upload a few pics I took today and write some text around them. It is very challenging for me to organise words into sentences, paragraphs etc. I have impairments with bipolar 1 disorder and post-traumatic disorder (PTSD), which affect my cognition and communication.
I recently published a memoir, Bipolar Cringe, about the hypersexuality at the end of a marriage (open in final year). Written, at the time, before I was diagnosed bipolar 1 disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I published it minimally edited so that it was still raw.
For the past few years, I have been subjected to targeted harassment because I no longer identify as autistic. When I wrote the memoir, I identified as Aspie/Aspergers and autistic. Social justice warriors on Twitter took offence over their identify politics and targeted my book with malicious reviews. This was part of a massive mob cyberbullying attack by strangers. The following screenshots are only a small sample of the abuse. [Update: I still won't call myself 'autistic', after a psychiatrist has since formally diagnosed me with pervasive developmental disorder - not otherwise specified, PDD-NOS, with clinically significant autism spectrum features since childhood (including mutism). PDD-NOS is still a current diagnosis in New Zealand. Part of the reason I don't call myself autistic, is because I consider myself mildly affected in adulthood plus I don't want to be associated with what I call fraudtistics.] This was one of the many insults, when I supported an autistic woman with different political views to the mob: |
Xanthe WyseI am no longer blogging or vlogging as a mental health and disability advocate. The politics of it is too toxic for me. Archives
May 2023
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