"Mum ... can't you just poo your bipolar out?"

My youngest son asked me if I could just poo my bipolar out. I told him if only it were that easy .. because having manic depression is pretty shit. We'd just spent a while talking about our brains, our moods, depression, the vital importance of talking about how we feel to the people who love us. And bipolar - man did we talk about bipolar. As per usual, he had a lot of questions.

"So, it's a disease in your brain?"
"Does that mean I'll get it?"
"When will it stop?"
"But doesn't the tablets you take for it cure you?"
"Didn't hospital fix you?"
"Did Uncle Cam have it, is that why he killed his self?"
"Wow. Uncle Cam killed his self. I thought he was smart."
"Seriously mum when will you finish having the bipolar?"

So many beautifully innocent and curious questions. Such few proper answers. He asked to see the medications I take in the morning so I showed him. He asked if I'd had bipolar my whole life, I said I think so but big major sad things that happen in life can make bipolar worse. He asked if I could just poo it out, oh my god we laughed so hard. How cool would it be if we could just literally expel the shit parts of ourselves? Some people say that having bipolar is one of the best things about them and they wouldn't trade their bipolar even if they could.

I am not one of those people.

Having a diagnosis of bipolar was all, hooray, now we know what's wrong! But that was just the beginning of balancing the meds, mood stabilisers, putting on a shitload of weight, trying so hard to be as capable as what I used to be years ago. It was very, very hard. I don't like it. I don't like feeling the lows, much prefer the highs. When I'm "manic" I talk fast and have all these grandiose ideas - some of which even come to fruition. Bipolar depression is so fucked I can't even be bothered to explain it except for saying it's just fucked. Trying to work out which are my character traits, which are my mental health traits, which are all my other traits ... I can't. It's all mixed into one big trait under a big heading of LOONEY TUNE.

Holding down a job is nigh impossible. Some days I conquer the world, other days I have a shower and eat well and parent well and like Jack Nicholson says, this is as good as it gets.

People with Bipolar 2 have the largest suicide rate of all other mental illnesses. How can I talk about being and feeling suicidal most of my life without worrying that my children will think I don't love them? I can't. I just face each day as they come. They come thick and fast and some days I don't believe all the constant inspirational bullshit platitudes. Some days I just get by, pretending I'm part of the couch and if I don't move then I'm not doing anything bad or wrong I'm just existing and maybe that's good enough? I'm crying as I write this, I cry a lot. Watching people on tv and on social media living seemingly wonderful lives annoys the fucking crap out of me so badly. Tell me your dark, too. Balance it out, perfect people. It's dangerous for us sad and fucked up people to imagine everybody but them has their shit together.

Going in to a psych ward doesn't cut it for me anymore. It's just a daycare for crazy people. I have med check-ups and changes. I see a GP, a professor, a counsellor (sometimes). I've been in big trouble with the law this past few years .. still don't know if was due to bipolar rage or just dealing with shitty people around me who get away with being shitty people. Arseholes be arseholes, Eden. Live and let karma take care of the rest, amirite? So easy for me to not be taken seriously. I've had my mental health been used against me in court proceedings, custody issues - you name it. All of the things. Stigma is alive and well. I hear over 50 million dollars has been recently released to businesses and companies for the oft-spruiked SUICIDE AWARENESS. We're aware of it, so where to from here?

A dear friend of mine recently died and I was pallbearer at his funeral. Didn't even know chicks were allowed to be pallbearers, but we are. I did a magnificent job because I'm strong, inside and out. I carried him along a long driveway past all of the people. I had a straight back but now I want my friend back and life doesn't work that way. The inevitable crash and burn from that has arrived like I knew it would. Bunkering down for a while, taking it easy on myself, blah blah fucken blah. This shit just sucks. I'd pay to not have it but mental health fuckdom is prevalent on both sides of my family so I've won the genetic bonanza of being whatever the hell I am. I will always abhor labels but obviously we need to know what we got so we can work with it. People in developing countries don't have access to medications and help the way I do, guess that makes people like me lucky.

I hate this shit. I hate how it's affected my life so very much. I hate that I got it and most of the time I hate who I am. I'm also very empathetic and real and kind and smart so there's all that.

Here is a very apt and accurate re-enactment of what entering a psych ward is like .. I too have sat there with a doctor while he has literally googled me right there in his office and found my website and become engrossed in it while I'm sitting there all beige on his worn chair, waiting for him to come up with some answers to treat me. It's tricky to be so accomplished and so, so fucked at the same time but some of us have got to do it to make all you big achievers with great lives feel good! Ha. I'm an arsehole but at least I'm an HONEST arsehole.





Suffering from head problems is exactly that - suffering. When I'm good I'm good. When I'm not ... well, I'm not. I'm so very far not.

In conclusion, I will answer any question any of my kids ask me and I pull no punches in my replies because I will not pussyfoot around with such serious shit. And it's very serious. Which is why I do stupid things to make myself and others laugh because life is stupid and dumb and I'm just not that enamoured. I said something to my friend Dan a while back when he was going through a hard time with his chronic back pain. "Mate, one day we'll all be dead. And none of this stuff will matter."

We both agreed that it made us feel better. And it's true. And life is still hard and now Dan is not here but I am here. And so are you.

It Didn't Bounce.

I have to write something about it so I cheated and cut-and-pasted a letter I wrote to her. She gave me permission to blog it. I was going to narrate these current weeks but some of these days do not need narrating nor remembering. Most of these days, actually. It's all a blur.

Megan's husband Dan died. Megan is my best friend. Dan was also one of my best friends. We talked so much on the phone, LAUGHING at life and its stupidity and hardness. Laughing. Bukowski said something like "We laugh in the face of death and death shall tremble to take us." Well, death trembled and took our Dan. I could rabbit on about all the things of him and who he was and his most beautiful, beautiful heart. He called me his sister because he called himself my stand-in-bro and I told him the awful parts of me - no judgement. He loved his girls so much and he'll continue to love his girls from wherever he is. I feel him around them, in their house. He's so here, so not here. We kind of can't believe it, the Soul immediately goes into shock mode the instant one of our beloveds die, doesn't it? Survival shock mode, to protect us from the unimaginable truth until little by little, the shock has to gently ease off and we face the horror of it. You know what I'm talking about. Most people on earth have experienced death so far, just at different levels. Two little blonde girls are experiencing death but they're little. It will take a long time for ... everything, really.

Anyway so I love Megan and want to move into the house next door but I have sons in Katoomba who need their mum and that's the only reason I haven't packed up and left the mountains.

So here's the letter - obviously a bit censored for this website because #dark #inappropriate etc. But here's the letter, the letter to my Megan. I don't have hardly any real proper friends thanks to ten schools, being a chameleon my whole life, and my Bipolar-paranoia-weirdness preventing me from getting close to people. But I am very close to Megan and our friendship was no accident. She has literally saved my life twice. Dan checked in with me a lot to make sure I've been ok during the past few years of me being not ok at all far from it. But this is not about me. Funny how people make everything about them when it's not. Oh people, you're so cute and weirdos too.

Tomorrow we will have the funeral that has been planned. Funeral planning is bad. 12-pack toilet paper in lieu of flowers is good. Death lasagna is bad but appreciated. Absconding with Megan to get a mani-pedi despite her protestations is good. Explaining to little girls what a coffin is is bad. Laughing with those same little girls and doing dances in the kitchen singing made-up poo songs is good.

The biggest thing anybody can help with right now is to please chip in to this:

ING DIRECT
Account Name: Daley Education Fund
BSB: 923100
Account number: 312 562 19

Megan's website is Children's Books Daily - click on it and buy like, ten books because she has affiliate links on there. I don't have affiliate links and have been relying on different people to pay my airfares back and forth, oh thank you, people. Swings and roundabouts. Maybe leave her a comment here or on Facebook, especially if you have any tips on how to parent little children when one of their parents die.

Jim Morrison says the future's uncertain, the end is always near. Megan's future is uncertain. Everything is not how it was supposed to go in her life. She has so many good people around her! But no energy-suckers. I'm her bouncer gatekeeper at the moment. I'm anything she needs me to be in any given moment. #chameleon And I will be here for her until the rocking chair days on the front porch when we're old and grey. It's a privilege to get old and grey.



My Megan.                                        1st May 2017

Hey sweetheart. I’m sitting at your kitchen table. It’s 8am and it’s just me and Tyson here. Pretty quiet. Pretty and quiet … you got so many beautiful things. And yes I broke in last night but I swear I didn’t snoop. Just ate an avocado, ripe as. Slept in the girls bedroom. For some reason the bottom mattress was wet - I smelt it, it’s not piss but even if it was I would have slept there anyway because I’m a grot also lazy. I just got the doona down from the top bed and made myself a non-wet mattress sandwich. Tyson slept on the bed too I mean is he even allowed to sleep on beds? It doesn’t matter today if Tyson can sleep on beds or not. He’s my favourite dog, man. Why does he shake though, like is he that actual literally scared and anxious all the time? Poor guyo. I rub his tummy until he stops shaking, we’re pretty tight now, me and him.

It’s a really nice day today. Weather-wise only but still - the sun’s out and it’s only early. Except the galahs annoyed me. Felt like they were laughing - it’s not funny, galahs.

Last night on Facebook my friend posted video of her baby daughter taking her first steps. Insanely cute and the same weekend her bubba walked was the same weekend of the worst weekend of your life and that’s saying something because you’ve had a lot of worst things, same here. And each worst thing we go through we just think ok, so, that’s the worst of the worst that can happen now but now, well, nothing gets worse than this. Worse. Strange word. Hopefully you’ve reached Pinnacle Worst. The next few years are going to be an utter bitch, like you’re in a hot skillet and it’s slippery with butter and no matter how much you try get out you keep sliding back in. I know you and death are very acquainted but not like this, honey.

Not like this. 

Let this be the death of death itself. Let your parents both live to be a hundred, let you find pockets of warm in your hot skillet until one day gradually you’ll realise somebody has finally turned the heat down and you can turn a corner, turn the page. You’ve got so many pages still to turn. I know you will be ok and get through this and go on to live a more peaceful life. You’ve got so much good rich stuff to do that will feed your soul. I know you’ll be ok, even though the world has changed forever and again, in reiteration my bubba .. you have not felt a death like this before. So many years so much history so much love and tears and fighting and laughing and sorrow and frustration and love. You guys loved each other, I saw it and felt it.

Now you’re a window with no N. If you were in Greece you’d probably wear a black shroud for a year. That’s cool. You look great in black.

Small mercies, thank you heaven. You weren’t alone. You were surrounded by your people right there in the same house. Your mum was teaching the girls chinese checkers and you were making some kind of naan situation while I was back at my place eating celery sticks with Rocco. Whose parents are both alive so he’s just going to have to deal with the fact that his mum is going to be spending a whole lot of time in Brisbane. Not just for the next few weeks but on and off for always, now.

Remember we used to laugh about how I had to get better so I was well and strong enough to be there for you when the time came? That time has come and I’m well and strong. Did we know this was going to happen all along, Megan? Is the ends of peoples lives already written in the stars of fate? And who are we to say when a person “should” die. People die. People take their first steps. People eat celery and make naan every single day, all over the world.

Every morning I check the news and hope that some huge catastrophic global event has taken place. The thought soothes me. Maybe Kim Myong Weird Haircut North Korea guy will blow up planet earth soon anyway, put us all out of our misery. But in the meantime, Pud has piano practice and Chickpea goes to school in her way-too-big-uniform with that hat.

Your daughters are my daughters. My favourite beer was Corona and it says on the label “Mi Casa Su Casa” which means my home is your home. I think that’s about 70% true I can’t be sure. A good writer embellishes facts and a good writer narrates horrible weeks after the Worst Has Happened for her best friend she met on the internet. 

The world has only got one equator remember when I was in Africa and thought there was two equators? There’s one - it was a rouge, like something out of a sky-fi movie.

Oh my god the cutest little boy is in a backyard next to yours and he just came out with the massivest stick and shouted “THIS, IS OUR AREA. I DECLARE THIS TO BE OUR AREA AND NOBODY CAN TAKE IT.” And he shoved that stick in the ground like Neil Armstrong and the flag on the moon. Maybe we’re living on the moon and the moon that we think is the moon is actually earth. Ever wonder about the names of things - like, a chair is what we call the sitting down thing. Coffee is this dark liquid we drink. Jupiter is just a planet just like all the other planets but it’s called “Jupiter” because somebody named it Jupiter. It’s just a hunk of rock spinning in space. Humans name things because we need to but there’s some things that can never be named like that terrible awful awful feeling deep in your chest. That has no name. Maybe we’re too scared to name it because we’re too scared to feel it and now you have no say whether you feel it or not.

You and the girls have to come back to your home today. Just the three of you. Blonde trio. You’ll walk around your kitchen and your living room and everything’s the same but nothing will ever be the same again. Only three little ducks came back and that’s one of the most unfairest things I’ve ever known. When I was getting arrested (again) last year, the cops were at my door and the reason was so dumb, so stupid to be arrested for. Roc was in the living room living and I cried to the police saying “This isn’t fair!” And one of the coppers said “Eden, life isn’t fair.” He was the nice cop who walked Rocco across the road and later when I was waiting in the cells I asked the same copper how long it took for Rocco to ask him about his gun. He smiled and said “Before we’d even crossed the road.” Then I asked him if he really believed that life wasn’t fair and he said yes. That’s a pretty big statement, like ALL of life isn’t fair? Well that’s not fair that life’s not fair. 

Whatever the opposite of fair is is where you are darling.

Sorry for breaking in. I didn’t go into your bedroom. I cried a lot but I know that I’m exactly where you need me to be and when I walk outside to your car later when you drive up your driveway I’ll hug you even though you hate hugs but it’ll be a brief hug before I turn all of my attention onto your girls. Be right here for and with them, not even talking about heavy stuff, just my soul next to their souls. Get the textas out so they can colour in my tattoos like they always do At some point I’ll tell them my dad died too .. don’t know if they know that. Chickpea is softer than the hard shell of the small beautiful nut that Pud is. She’s quite mysterious and deep and I already know the look in her eyes. Megan I have a very, very stealthy gentle nutcracker for our Pud.

Your girls are going to be ok.

Your girls are going to be ok.

Your girls are going to be ok.

Your girls are going to be ok.

Hey how cool is it that my computer and phone remembered your wi-fi. I’m a break-and-enter-hacker kind of friend. You know I have a low self-esteem so I’m allowed to say this: I’m so glad you got me. So, so glad you got me. There’s muddy gunk ahead on the road and it’s going to stick to your wheels and stop you in your tracks. I want to buy you a sledgehammer so you can destroy things.

So that’s this morning so far. Now the kids in the backyard are annoying me, one of them is crying. Autocorrect just autocorrected crying to “dying.” At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if one of those kids keel over right next to the stick in the ground and died. Death is everywhere and keeps hunting us down like the worst game of hide-and-seek ever BOO. Stop jumping out of cupboards, DEATH. 

Your avocado was perfectly ripe last night. I ate it with my fingers and the only way I could get to sleep later was to pretend he was still alive.