If You Can't Stand The Mummyblogging Heat, Then Get Out Of The Mummyblogging Kitchen.

I'm on a train. Wearing headphones like I always do. After The Train Incident last week if any leery sleazy man asks me (while I'm trying to listen to Tupac) if my cowboy boots are made of real cowhide I'll say "No they're actually made out of the skin of the last repulsive guy who stared at my tits and asked me a question on a train while I'm listening to music."

See now that whole opening paragraph isn't technically mummyblogging, because there is no such thing as mummyblogging. I make up words all the time but "mummyblogger" isn't even a real word. And if you're going to use it as such then at least give it a hyphen to make it more credible. Women write about things on the internet. Read: "I AM MUMMYBLOGGER" written in 2012 along with this photo:

Some of the writing done by people with vaginas is twee and shit and boring and fake. Some of it is informative, heartbreaking, real. But it's not mummyblogging otherwise everything a mother does would be prefaced with the word "mummy."

"What did you do last night Eden?" 

"Well, I walked up to the pizza joint using my mummyfeet and then I put pieces of said pizza into my mummyfoodhole and when I got home I watched Lagertha kill some Frenchmen and then I had two mummyorgasms when I played with my mummyclitoris because I've been going through a bit of a mummyroughpatch the past few years and I needed a mummydistraction."

I've been online for almost ten years. I remember when twitter was invented and it was so cute! We all put it in the sidebars of our websites and just kind of fucked around on it. And when Instagram came on the scene, it was just people sharing photos. No hashtags, no selling, no promoting, no "building your fanbase" or brand no competing. Just words. Now it's all kind of changed and when I say "kind of changed" I mean SPECTACULARLY SPUN OUT OF CONTROL SIRI WHUT HAPPENED.

Because of my website I've been featured in countless newspapers, magazines, radio shows, news websites, tv programs (The Project, the Morning Show, Lateline, some political show I can't remember, and even bloody Mediawatch.) I've spoken at numerous conventions here in Australia and overseas. Interviewed then-Prime Minister Julia Gillard at Kirribilli House. And the biggest and most meaningful thing I'm most proud of is my work for World Vision. I did a lot of good for that charity. (It took a lot out of me but it was worth every dusty, sad, hopeful, boring, incredible day.)

I'm not tooting my own horn here I'm just saying I've been around. I know all this shit like the back of my hand. Strangers come up to me in the street. A lot of people know who I am. A few years back, there was a very defining moment where I could have turned my whole website into a giant juggernaut what with my whole "online persona."  Thing is I don't have a persona - I'm a person. Not a businesswoman, not a social-media maven, not even really ambitious. Some - a lot - of people are, and have succeeded at successful online business. In theory, I have not done that. I only ever started writing online to document my IVF process. And then post-natal depression, PTSD from the cancer the father of my children faced, then I relapsed, then I came back fighting, then my stepdad died, then I got admitted to psych wards, then my brother killed himself, then I left the family home, then I relapsed again, then I came back fighting again, then I was diagnosed with serious fucking mental health issues, then came separation and divorce and custody and I lost my ever-loving mind. And now I'm back fighting again again lol, you never know what's going to happen in life and you never, ever can truly understand something until it happens to you.

So because of all of this documentation, because I've written and written and became the writer I knew I was all along ... I kind of accidentally "helped" people along the way. I also faced heavy fucking criticism, rape threats, vicious jealousy, etc. These days when people tell me I've saved their lives I try always email them back with something - anything, we all secretly deep down want to be acknowledged and valued and feel worthy. It's taken me a long process of realising I've never saved anybody's life. Maybe for one hour or one day I've helped a fellow-traveller out but jeez, I couldn't save my brothers life. We have to save our own.

This post is rambling into a different direction like things always do on here but one gleaming pearl of wisdom I can impart to any person who puts themselves out on social media in any form is this: take care of yourselves and roll with the criticism. Learn from it. Cop it on the chin. These days when I say "I really don't care what anybody thinks of me" I actually really mean it. Which is alternately a dangerous yet also freeing place to be. Losing everything left me with nothing left to lose and the art of not giving a fuck is the best thing I've ever had to learn. What did Homer Simpson do in a 90's Nintendo game when he's pulling backwards out of his driveway and bashing into everything in his path even mowing down and killing Flanders on the road? He puts his head out the window and yells "MISTAKES WERE MADE." Story of my life, probably the story of yours. If you really do identify as a mummyblogger - well, one day your kids are going to grow up. One day your life might fall apart and us online crazies who write about that shit can take huge hits mentally because aren't the interesting crazy ones some of the best reads anyway?

Last week I was sent a You Tube comment notification on a video I put up recently about how people shouldn't tell people (online or anywhere else, really) to "go kill themselves." And so this one comment was "KYS." And I thought oh that's pretty nice, somebody is saying "kiss" to me but it's not "kiss" it's short for "Kill Your Self" because these days people can't even be bothered to write out proper words it's all abbreviation. I thought it was funny. Stuff like that doesn't bother me in the slightest anymore but if you're new online or young or sensitive, it can be hurtful and dangerous.

This entire post is written in response to the recent "mummyblogging war/stoush" the press recently picked up on and documented. (I'm not taking sides .. well I could but I just can't be bothered.)

We can't all get along in real life or in online life, we never will, we're humans and there'll always be drama and crap. Learn and move on. And if you happen to "hit it big" and end up with a lot of "followers" then it means people are following you.

So you've got to ask yourself .. where are you going to lead them?

::

PS Cake. I lead you to cake. Black humour. Living with and in the darkness but mostly I just don't take myself too seriously anymore, can't afford to, life's too serious to take it seriously and at this point I have run out of all mummyfucks.

PPS Just wrote a whole social commentary post coz it feels so empty Without Me but now I'm free and I promise to not use my social media powers for bad or revenge anymore because "I just settled all my lawsuits FUCK YOU DEBBIE!"






(Comments are off but if you click on any of the categories at the bottom of this post they'll take you to other posts I've written about on the same subjects.)

PPPS I've let all of my children listen to Eminem's uncensored songs for all these years and I don't give a fuck I want them to harness their shit and be bold #mummybloggingfail

Know When To Fold Them.

Told my friend Mary (full of grace) recently that yeah I have bipolar but often it feels like it has me. I hate labels but I guess we do need them to understand things better. For example, a chair is called "a chair" because "a sit-down kind of thingo" is just long and too convoluted. Humans like our labels, makes things easier to understand. But it does suck to be labelled because you can kind of feel trapped and stuck and I keep wanting to prove that I'm other things too. Last week my cousin's one year old son covertly steals my Dyno label-maker from my kitchen bench and pretended to call his mother on it. "HAI MUM!" It was so cute. To him it was a phone, not a label-maker.

It's taking a long time to even acknowledge that my mental health issues are even real let alone accepting and dealing with them. Especially after living in a heightened state of trauma for quite a few years. Hopefully the clearing in the forest of bullshit is coming, soon. This piece on The Mighty about the hard lessons of having bipolar struck so close to home and helped me understand my own behaviour.

SIX HARD LESSONS FROM LIFE WITH BIPOLAR DISORDER

So hard, and embarrassing. AND HARD. The article ends with a quote written by George R.R. Martin for the character Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones.

He's talking about his dwarfism to Jon Snow, but he's pertaining it to Jon Snow being a bastard son. Pertaining is a good word. I pertain it to things relevant to me .. bipolar, mental health, "being crazy" .. struggling with substance abuse issues. Chronic and debilitating depression. Just fuckedness in general, really. We ALL got our shit and crosses to bear hey maybe it's all in how we carry them. With style .. a certain sense of exuberant case of the whatevers, here's my cross and I'm carrying it out loud. You can carry yours tucked away in your pocket so nobody sees that's cool. Just try not judge the blatant cross-carriers.

Anyway what the hell do I know. Just yesterday I was wondering if I actually was just a ghost going through the motions of the world because some days it sure as hell feels like it.

Part of the fighting is in the giving up. But giving up in a positive way. Bono says it's good to always remain teachable but holy shitballs ... the lessons involved in remaining teachable is like swallowing a tonne of cement that me and only me has created. Hard to stomach.

Before Christmas I'm buying a hiking backpack to go hike somewhere. The guy in the shop said there's some beautiful places in Western Australia, or the Hinterlands. I smiled and asked him where the Hinterlands were and he just told me without batting an eyelid that I didn't know such a basic thing. I said "Don't judge me" and he said "I'm not" and I believed him. So now I know where the Hinterlands are.

I don't care if this all sounds weird and doesn't make sense to most but hey guess what - a label-maker can also be a phone. Not everyone defines people by their labels. How cool is that.

(The comment section is still closed. Sorry.)

It's Never You.

Hey mate. I was thinking the other day about that time you lived in that flat in Potts Point and woke up stark naked out on William Street because you went sleepwalking and locked yourself out of your place. Remember how the cops drove by and they were all, what the fuck dude and you explained it to them and while you were waiting for a locksmith they gave you one of those CSI suits to wear. It was a funny story. But is it, or is sleepwalking to that degree indicative of deeper, not-so-great stuff going on in somebodies head and heart? Indicative - there's a word. Not only does it have the sound "dick" in it but there were many indications in your life that your life was not going great. Detour signs, stop signs, "TURN BACK, WRONG WAY" .. bumpy road ahead. Potholes. Expired parking meters. A lot of the people in your life didn't miss those signs in you. A lot of us tried to reach in and grab your pulsating heart to prove to you that you were still alive and still here.

Anyway so you're still not alive and you're still not here because life ends for us all but you ended yours prematurely of your own accord and quite frankly fuck you so hard for begging and making me promise that if you killed yourself there would be no funeral. Fuck your six-page suicide addressed to me ... umm, any idea how it feels like to be the person you dictated all your "tying up of loose ends?" Basically I feel like a murderer - dude, I wish you hadn't have done that. I know you'd have no idea of the impact but christ on a cracker, what was I, your fucking suicide secretary? Exactly a month after you died I crashed my car because I fell asleep driving two hours to the beach house after having dinner with a heap of your friends. So I drove around in your silver Cruze sedan for a while until my insurance came through. You forgot some loose ends ... you forgot you left your black unlined notebook in the side pocket of your drivers seat, detailing your planning of your demise. I see you researched ropes and how to tie knots first, before you started getting quotes on gas cylinders. Who the fuck cares about price differences in the gas cylinders they're going to kill themselves with when they're about to die anyway? Like fifty bucks is going to make a huge difference - for what? That's just stupid.

You're stupid. You're a stupid fucking arrogant cocksucker for doing what you did and I will never ever hate you for it and the thing that I guess is slightly worrisome now is I completely understand why you'd want no funeral. Because fuck a bunch of people coming to sit solemnly in pews weeping and saying all the nice things. Where were they when you couldn't sleep for three days straight and you had the dead eyes going on and you were a little boy who needed ... more.

Thing is, you grew up and wouldn't let hardly anybody in. A lot of people tried and did their best. Yeah life is hard but it is for all of us. Some more than others - much more. For example, I feel so fucked up and low at this juncture I just kind of walk around with my shoulders slumped reminding myself life is just temporary so just live it anyway. There's not many people left for me, anymore. Very, very few close friends and a handful of family. I'm so far outside of my wife/mother role that I just don't know how I'll get through because the ferocity of love I have for my sons is the same I have for you. And you're gone and the last few weeks I have been seeing you EVERYWHERE. Legit three or four times every day lately I see a guy in the street and for 0.003 seconds I think THERE HE IS! And it's never you. Strange thing is I keep looking - sometimes weirding guys out because I just keep looking intently trying to will you back into existence with my very mind powers but no. No, sweetheart. You is gone.

And my grief allocation expired years ago, people get annoyed or chirpy chipper telling me some bullshit about some bullshit but you can't wrap a big fat pink bow around one of the deepest cuts a Soul's ever experienced so these days I just say nothing. I don't even write about you much anymore. Someone yelled at me (more than once) ALL YOU FUCKING DO IS SIT ON YOUR COMPUTER AND WRITE ABOUT YOUR DEAD BROTHER. I'm not even pissed he said it because he was right. Truth hurts. Everything hurt. My life crashed and burnt after you died but let's face it, I hadn't been travelling great for a few years beforehand anyway so I don't blame it all on your death. But death does have a way of tearing your entire existence apart. I lost so many things after you left. I fucked up so bad - and have been fucked over so bad in return. Life is bullshit. I don't like it even more now. I really don't give that many fucks about many things anymore. It's freeing to not give a fuck, the trick is to just give a fuck about the RIGHT things. Hopefully my guys will catch on to that. Max is taller than me now. He's stunning. Remember that time when you lived with us and you sat him down and taught him the "proper" way to play Pokemon cards? Because of course you did, you bloody all-knowing dork. Remember he's sitting there and after listening to you talk for about ten minutes I clocked the look on his face and told you mate, you're boring him. And you were but he was too polite to tell you. Rocco's into Pokemon cards now too ... as was his biggest brother fourteen years ago. I'm quite looking forward to the Pokemon stage being over because for a start, those packs are EXPENSIVE. Some little shit from Rocco's school stole his best card AND the Pokemon book I bought him.

"Right. What's his name. I'm coming into school to get them back."
"Mum, I'm not telling you his name because I know what you're like."

All my sons know what a brash, ballsy, put-up-with-no-shit-fuck-a-bitch-up mother I am. They've all told me repeatedly over the years that I'm not a normal mum, probably because I'm not a normal mum. I fucking loathe doing canteen, serving little kids icy poles with my tattooed arms. I put myself through the anxiety hell of canteen just so for the whole of recess Rocco gets to be the man and rack up a tab of buying shit for all his mates. One day it cost me $17 but I hadn't seen him for a while - worth every penny.

I keep getting into legal trouble and should basically set up a camp bed at Katoomba Courthouse now. It's not really fun, it's fucked. Everything I am gets literally dragged out and used against me in a court of law so help me, god. Centrelink doesn't cover my rent. I'm not particularly successful right now but what the hell is success at this point in time? Sometimes it's just existing. Taking a rest before the next hurdle.

So my future is looking quite shit and scary but hey, I'm picking Rocco up tomorrow and he'll be with me for a while and on Saturday when the calendar marks exactly three years since you died, me and Rocco are going to Marina's house to mind Logan - yeah Rini had a kid. She got married .. her and Ariel and Morgan are all grown up and incredible and have been through hell and back and it's so so nice to be in their lives again. I talk to Uncle Stevie about a lot of shit. It's so fucking vital to be real with people and he rings to check up on me and reminds me that I'm not alone, and family is everything.

Sometimes family isn't everything though, hey. I miss you. Can you hear me when I talk to you and narrate my latest fucked-up episode to you usually at 2am when I can't sleep and I'm just laugh-crying at the latest bullshit escapade I got myself into again? Remember playing Kings Quest on that archaic computer when we lived in England in 1988 right before your dad killed himself and you and I just both could NOT destroy Mannanan the Evil Wizard? Still shits me to this day.

Remember you and I were watching Never-ending Story when we were kids and when the white horse got stuck in the mud and sunk and died you cried so uncontrollably I had to turn the video off? I took you for a walk up to Mt Riv shops to cheer you up with a few King Rat lollies - you were always a jube guy. Remember I used to call you upstairs and had wrapped up some lame thing hanging around my bedroom and made a really big deal out of it and you unwrapped the newspaper wrapping - you'd get so excited. Until one day you grew a bit older and you just looked at me like, Ede, this is just one of your manky toys.

Hey where DID Oofie go? He wasn't in the stuff you half-packed into boxes before you died. By the way I gave your four white Ikea chairs away. Threw your Wimbledon hat in the bin. Along with your cologne, your suicide planning book, and your wallet. I cut up all your credit cards and mining license cards (YOU SHOULD NEVER HAVE BECOME A MINER) and your drivers license. When I did it I was siting on my kitchen floor sobbing and my tears fell on all your cut up cards and I just kept saying out loud that I'm sorry but I can't hold onto your stuff anymore, it was heavier than the moon. I knew you'd understand. I took it all up to a bin in Katoomba Street because I couldn't put it all in my kitchen bin because it just needed to be out of my house and when I went to chuck it all in the bin it was about 4pm and the street was busy with people walking past and all these pieces of your cut-up cards and licenses fell all over the street so I'm there cry-laughing picking it all up piece by piece coz I cut them all up real small, you know? And that - exactly that is one of the many times I turn my eyes skyward and address you and just tell you oh my fucking god Cam this is my life right now is this absurd or what?

I wanna talk to you about the Rothschilds banks and the Federal Reserve and who's funding all the wars and what's your latest girlfriend like and how I took Rocco to Wet'n'Wild last week and when I was in a cafe ordering my double-shot latte I opened my emails and found out I was officially divorced. Who the fuck finds out they're divorced at a theme park. The finality hit me so bad and hard I stood there for about a minute openly weeping and people were staring (See: not giving a fuck) and I called my friend Naomi to talk me down but if you were alive I would have called you first. And you would have made me laugh.

So yeah you died in spring and it's spring again now and I'm not even angry at the cherry blossoms this year. They got a right to bloom - it's not their fault. The other day I was half-heartedly pushing clothes around my bedroom "cleaning" and I found your unwashed t-shirt ... this exact one, actually:

Haven't smelt it in over a year so I took the biggest, biggest inhale and it still smells like you. And I didn't cry. And I'll never wash it.

I miss your face and your laugh and your HUMOUR and your beautiful caring heart and so many other beautiful things about you you couldn't see. I don't miss your dead eyes, your sad defeat, your chronically inexplicably evil depression. I'm still here living, life's still fucked - you're not missing anything really. Except we're missing you, Cam. All of the people who loved you so so so much - we're all missing you. You are missed. The babies you will never have are missed - you might have even built that mud-brick house if you stayed, and lived in it and found some kind of tolerable grasp on a piece of meaningful happy existence. We should have had a funeral for us, not you. Would have been nice to hear stories about you we'll never hear.

I'm writing this all out now before Saturday because fuck Saturday to hell and I'll be with my boy and he's seen me cry enough, too much. But I'm really quite fucked up at the moment so spare me some fucking afterlife grace or some shit because I need it, brother.

Ok I love you. See you maybe again one day or never. Who knows. Gotta go, bro.  It's 2am and this six-pack of cinnamon donuts aren't going to eat themselves. Hey I've still got your couch - it's a good couch. Rocco's thoroughly trashed it with spilt drinks and food and I don't mind at all because it means your couch is being lived in - SO lived in.

Just not by you.

IF YOU ARE FEELING SUICIDAL PLEASE CLICK HERE

(Comments off because I can't handle them sorry.)

Straight Truth, On The Rocks.

Yeah I'll be quick. I'm writing this one because I was privy to a conversation the other day in where I butted in because sometimes we have to be a buttinski when we feel it's necessary.

Some twenty-somethings were talking about just general shit which I found boring because I'm old enough to be their mother ... and then this young girl came out with how much anxiety and pain she was in, every day, all the time, found it hard to leave her house, depressed, sometimes wanted to die. My ears perked UP ... especially when this one loudmouth guy-friend of hers demanded to know why she'd never spoke about this before. (I'm assuming she spoke about it because I was speaking about it quite freely and matter-of-factly, these subjects roll off my tongue.)

She was really embarrassed and tried to backtrack. The guy-friend of hers completely had no idea or empathy of where she was at, I'm not even judging him about it but it was FASCINATING how he didn't have one shred of understanding. He told her to just don't think that way. He told her to get up and eat well and go for a run ... at this point I actually put my hand up to him and said "Dude, you don't know what you're talking about. No offence, but shush, be quiet. Let her finish." He wasn't even insulted because he was young, very good-looking, arrogant, and completely self-centred why the hell would he give a shit about what some 40-something year old mother said to him.

So there's this beautiful young girl spilling out some shit - only some, she was holding a lot back I could tell. Her family history of mental health stuff that has affected her greatly, her very intelligent views on the world and how hopeless it can be. I didn't even know her and I wanted to hug her, told her I understood everything of what she'd just said. Young dumb full of come guy's fuckwittery then hit a new level. "Just stop it." He told her to just stop it, like it was that easy.

I did crack the shits then. "Mate it must feel so good to be you and not have to deal with all this stuff that she's talking about right now but you seriously have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. This is serious shit - and I'm sure you have your own serious shit you go through in life but this is her serious shit and you're blowing it off and shutting her down and making her feel bad. Nobody can tell anybody else what to feel." 

I didn't spend much more time with them after that, except to ask her to step outside with me. I showed her some of my slam poems. Showed her other peoples slam poems, websites that might help, other humans going through the same thing she was. "Honey it feels like you're alone. You're not alone." Told her about my psychiatric admissions. Told her about my sons. I told her so much stuff but when I told her about the struggle my brother went through, she broke down. But a good breakdown - not all breakdowns are bad in fact most are entirely needed. She thanked me so much but I didn't even do anything, except tell her a bit of truth straight up, truth on the rocks about being on the rocks.

She walked back inside to the gallery but I didn't, that was enough people for me. I walked home in the ICY ICY COLD OF KATOOMBA STREET I'VE BEEN SO GOOD AT NOT COMPLAINING ABOUT THE COLD THIS YEAR BUT WINTER, YOUR TIME HAS EXPIRED.

::

So that's that. I didn't even catch this chicks name but I hope she gets through it all ok, I've thought about her for days. Just want her know she's not alone.

It's a Monday on a long weekend and here is me in real life right now:

I fucking well ran out of my antidepressants a few days ago like an idiot. The zapping made me walk up to the chemist where they know me quite well, same meds different days. Got my bipolar meds and anti-depressant meds filled and while I was sitting there waiting, TWO rude customers came in. The first guy was whining like a little kid, telling the chemist he's eating two sheets of Strepsils a day and his throat is STILL SORE. Like it's the chemists fault. I was disdainful and judgy. The chemist was very polite but he looked over at me looking disdainfully and gave me a half-smile. Then this older lady comes in wanting some script for some shit and she was so, so rude. Why? Because her script came in a different packaging. "UGH, this is not the SAME." Both chemist assistants assured her it was the exact same, just different packaging. She argued. Then waved her hand said "Fine, fill it then. I'll come back."

I started laughing before she'd even walked out because she was just so rude. Being the only person in the whole chemist, I addressed all the staff loudly.

"You guys, on behalf of all the arsehole customers I'd like to thank you for all of your hard work today."

Man we all laughed so hard. One of them said "Yep, it's the out-of-towners on a long weekend that give us the most grief."

When I paid I had to pay full price regardless of my health-care card because I need some kind of Special Authorisation from my professor/doctor. FUCK. Getting help is so expensive. I've thought seriously lately about going off all of my medications, being a member of a program that promotes complete abstinence kind of skews my feelings around being medicated but at this point I know I need to stay medicated. Because if this is what I feel medicated, heaven help me when I'm not medicated.

That's the end of this entry. Except to say the tampons I bought exclaim on the pack "NEW Anti-Fluff Base!" Which part of a tampon is the base? And so all this time of periods I've been using fluffy tampons? Bring on the menopause apocalypse, is what I reckon.

Here's the song de jour, rattling around my head today. Laters. xxx

(I'm so sorry but the comments to my blog are still turned off and I don't know why they just are.)