Dr Madvibes

These will only work if you are logged in to NZD; that’s where they are published.  This also means you are not in any danger of  losing security, etc.  There must be room for three or four hundred people around NZ by now.

Threads get updated regularly and the latest ones will be the most useful.

Part 6:  http://tinyurl.com/6axlg2d

Part 5:  http://tinyurl.com/4d5j5f7

Part 4:  http://tinyurl.com/4lcol8a

Part 3: http://tinyurl.com/4t4zzgb

Part 2:  http://tinyurl.com/4g6pte6

Part 1:  http://tinyurl.com/4b8crgm

Remember, too, that Air NZ is doing $50 flights out of Christchurch to ANYWHERE in NZ.  

Current Mood: Confused

So much has happened, and yet nothing really has.  I am too tired to explain it, but I am also too tired to keep drinking and giggling at parties as if there is nothing to explain.  This has actually been a big year in a variety of different areas, and I only hope some of the things promised for 2011 come true.  *grins*

At some point tomorrow (hopefully), I will drop off a few packages of home-made fudge to work colleagues with the following letter.  Who knows where this will end up?

This is a creative project. I have created something as a present for you. I hope you will enjoy it, but if you cannot use it, you have my blessing to pass it on to someone else. It may not be worth anything in monetary terms, but please receive its intent: to cheer you during the difficult financial times affecting all New Zealanders.

 You have received this because I value your unique contribution, which cannot be measured in money, units of output or key performance indicators. I am happy to share my time and resources so that each individual’s unique gifts can be kept alive, no matter what the market decides those contributions are worth. These are some of my values.

 In doing this, I feel eccentric, if not old-fashioned. I wondered why, until I thought about the values New Zealand children have begun to absorb. Sadly, this generation will learn by example that sick people should not be assisted, because they do not contribute to the employment market. This generation will blindly accept that education is only as valuable as the inaccurate, arbitrary sets of measurements used to confine it.

 National plans to cut funds for education and health care. Will this build the society we want our children to inherit? As an educator, I would be ashamed to impart this government’s values to future generations through inaction.

 If you agree with me, I invite you to participate in this creative project by keeping it going. A copy of this letter is available at www.drmadvibes.com. I would like you to print it and send it to like-minded friends — along with your own creative gifts for them, to remind them you value them more than their market value

 A suitable gift need not be elaborate or expensive. If you have children, perhaps you could involve them in helping, too. Let’s see if we can get these little messages of kindness all around New Zealand and remind each other that any other human being is always a worthwhile investment. I would be interested to hear from anyone who participates, so please post on my blog when you’re done.

If you don’t agree or don’t wish to participate, that is perfectly fine. I still value you. I hope your day is a little brighter because someone is thinking about you.

If you think this is a great idea, don’t hesitate to print the letter and send your own creative projects on to friends and family.  I’d love to hear from you all.

Soon, I shall post part of something I’ve been considering for the past month or so. 

Someone I greatly admire has asked us all to consider the following question:  National plans to cut funds for education and health care. Will this build the society we want our children to inherit?

I know my answer to that question.  However, I couldn’t think how to take action in a way that would be within my capabilities and authentic to me, so I kept reading.  The open letter  invited me to start my own creative projects to protest the cuts.  I can do that. I’ve been creatively working around everyone else’s standards of conformity for years.   Watch this space.

I didn’t have to be silent too often at school, unlike the kids of previous generations.  Yet somehow,  I got extra homework to do.  It was not set by any teacher, but by the other students at school.  My parents required me to do the task, but the amount of work to do each day was left up to my peers.

My task was to chronicle the things that happened to me each day: what names I’d been called and how often, whether I’d been spat on again and by whom,  how I’d  been threatened or degraded and what physical assaults took place.   When I remember the contents of the file, I wonder why the extra homework was the last straw!  But it was.  It was unfair that I had to do more than others to prove myself and it was exhausting to re-live each day.

What has homework got to do with silence, then?  I imagine I would have been given less to do, if only some kids had shut their mouths.  I was called a stalker, a slut and a rootbag.  A classmate who lived nearby walked past and caught me kissing the family dog, so I became  known to have sex with my dogs.  I was accused of molesting little girls, because I was an assistant Brownie leader.  I did not know why people thought I was so evil.  I had tried to be nice.  But in the mix of names, the word ‘lesbian’  had featured.  I knew what the word meant, but I didn’t know what the word could do.

Letters were written to the school, but the deputy principal believed I had been provoking it.  I was encouraged  to look at my own social behaviour and consider why I was bullied.   But the kids didn’t stop.  I did not know why it was still  happening and I blamed myself for failing to change.   My teachers came back with every answer but the real answer, which they silently ignored.

Sometimes, the school would appear to do something about it, but it was a sham.   One girl witnessed a group of my peers being reprimanded for some bullying.  She was there while the deputy principal said, “I don’t care what you do to that girl.  Just don’t get caught.”

The school’s attitude continued, along with threats intended to silence me.  When I  reached the  legal leaving age, the school ‘suggested’  I leave unless I agreed to counselling for my ‘problems’.  The counsellor saw no need to see me beyond two sessions, but the school’s tactics directly followed an anonymous open letter my mother had  put in the paper.   The consequences of speaking out were made clear.

Despite this, the school had no interest in silence at more ethically appropriate times.   On one of her more volatile whims,  my mother once  called the school, when she feared I could become suicidal.   She demanded that the bullying be taken seriously.  The next day, the office lady’s daughter took great delight in announcing that she would spit on my grave.  That was the first I learned of my mother’s phone call,  leaving Mum to explain what had really happened.  I was not sure I believed her, and all the while, I felt someone was not telling me something.

Buried in the silence created by all their words was the word  ’lesbian’.  I didn’t realise it was such an important word, and I did not know what that word could do.  I didn’t think it was an important word.  My sister is a lesbian, so it was already normal to me.   But it was the silent, unspoken answer.  I had been getting  that treatment because people  knew that I would eventually figure out I was gay.

To cope, I  joined a church. I liked it anyway, but I could see it might help clear my name.   However, the church itself was a new source of abuse.  Because  I was still processing things, I was a prime target for new abusers.

The pattern of abuse took years to break.  It covered everything from workplace bullying to controlling flatmates, who tried to have me diagnosed with a mental illness when I would not be their maid.  Other people made me feel ashamed for the things they had done to me, silencing me  further.

My relationships were no exception. Several, especially the romantic relationships,  were abusive and based on silence, too.   While I also made  good friends in life, I have left just as many behind.  I don’t want to tell them I am gay after all.  They stuck up for me at a time when I believed I was not.  Now, they will think I  lied to them.

When I consider the  process of getting back to normal, I can  understand why Carl Walker-Hoover chose to  hang himself  when his peers abused him.  In an American school, in 2009, he would have known what the word ‘gay’ could do to him.  He would have known it was important, even at the age of eleven.

http://a.abcnews.com/Health/MindMoodNews/story?id=7328091&page=1

Had Carl taken the chance to become an adult, he might not have been gay.  Yet because of  adolescent bullying towards gays or suspected gays, some of us get extra homework to do – and an education besides.

A child could not have been  impulsive or selfish in the way many view  suicidal people.   At the best of times,  adulthood sounds ancient to a pre-teen child.   This was clearly not the best of times for Carl, who might well have believed his life would be cut shorter: a common feeling for those dealing with trauma.   I don’t remember believing I could live to be over thirty, because that was so old.  I’m only starting to feel as though there is a future now: at thirty-two!

At the time of writing this, I do not know if New Zealand is observing the Day of Silence. (www.dayofsilence.org)   This day is held in schools and education facilities to protest the harassment of queer youth, and if we don’t have it here, it’s time we did.

If I am anyone to you, please consider participating.  I want to do it in honour of my other friends, to whom I no longer speak.    You’d probably like them if only we were all still talking.

Definition: Feline Paralysis is a complex disorder which is characterised by a feeling of heaviness on the chest and/or legs at some point after lying down to sleep. People with feline paralysis find it difficult or impossible to get up out of bed as a result of this sensation. The condition usually worsens in winter.  100% of sufferers  share their accommodation with at least one cat.

I’d like to dedicate this first post to a new friend who came up with the idea for this domain. :p