I have a new camera, the computer is fixed and there's now a new scar on my forehead.
The Computer Part (Now Replaced)
Not much I can do about my head except to keep on going to the dentist. Hurting my head while already in distress from the dental work made the dental pain seem less. I'm taking a lot of pictures with a newer faster camera and it's really quite wondrous.
I have shelves of journals and essays and my book is all but finished although the agent who first said she'd take me on, changed her mind.
I don't want to self publish. I want to be published and promoted.
I want my book to introduce my areas of study, my essays and so on.
A friend has offered me advertising space.
I wondered if I should nominate favourite charities.
He already decided what he wants to promote, which is my book!
Well, I guess I can begin to blog it, or better, get a website. It's not enclosed by covers yet, this tale of my first few decades.
I don't have a garage full of unsold books, thankfully.
The book is sitting on my old computer and I may as well do what I imagined doing eleven years ago before The Tribunal Trouble impacted so fearfully.
(Thanks guys for ruining my teeth!)
I checked my journal from 1998. In it, I'm frantically running around trying to find paid work. Whatever was happening with the Tribunals stuff, I wished to avoid at all costs and decided that I must at least find part time work and get old projects going as well.
In the midst of chasing contacts, re-contacting former colleagues and Useful Types, I suddenly remembered a dream I'd had some time before.
I dreamed I was holding my first book in my hand & I could see its cover.
(No, I'm not going to give away the design!)
In the dream, letters were coming from both the writers who influence me and from new friends.
So I applied for an Australia Council Literary Grant.
(No I didn't get it. You have to be better at lobbying than I am, apparently.)
I recently found out all about this stuff when I read my journal from the early months of 1998.
I recently found out all about this stuff when I read my journal from the early months of 1998.
So, remembering this and tremendously weakened by the most recent traumatic decade, I've decided to introduce my pre Tribunal self to this blog!!!!! (I will change some names, not all.)
I am another person under the piles of lies via which various bullies provided me with disaster, ah, yes! Furthermore there still is a being I insist I am, whatever cliches may be imagined. First of all, I must confess thyat in terms of my disabilities, I'm not at my best when acute stress appears!
Today, at the Pub across the road to gather my thoughts, I've now read the local Sunday Magazines. The first recommended Acupressure, Acupuncture and Diet as a good means of dealing with hay fever.
I got penalised for choosing Acupuncture and etc to help my heath and maybe bring me closer to a career and all I can say is, why didn't They choose Ita Buttrose who apparently feels similarly to myself while not having survived the kinds of traumas I've survived.
I got penalised for choosing Acupuncture and etc to help my heath and maybe bring me closer to a career and all I can say is, why didn't They choose Ita Buttrose who apparently feels similarly to myself while not having survived the kinds of traumas I've survived.
Well, the reason I got into trouble was because my previous Doctor had scared me so much that in terms of dealing with a dental crisis which had been solved by a decent dentist and in terms of a stressful situation where no hard work was recognised or had attracted payment, I began to have regular acupuncture initially with her encouragement. Accidentally, I thought that meant she was open minded. After all the acupuncturist practiced within her clinic.
If I was stressed and if I was in the jitters or if depression threatened, I was able to step out from those treatments and resume my battles which included threatened homelessness and increased poverty as well as an atmosphere wherein I was trying to step back from bullies and exploiters.
I was happy when The Dept of Social Security accepted my Acupuncture Medical Certificates.
My Acupuncture treatments were sometimes a couple of hours in duration as opposed to the quarter hour sessions with the Ex Doctor which involved her refusal to believe that my mobility was already impaired, that I had dental problems (talk of an abscess whose symptoms were reduced by Acupuncture while I tried to round up money to pay a decent dentist(!), and most amazingly, harangued me about how I was sort of useless and thus this meant that I should be taking antidepressants.)
This bitch even presumed to lecture me about the work I was already doing and when I said I had good reason to be sad (my sister had died, all the great jobs I'd walked into in the eighties had dried up and the behaviour of my flatmate was becoming threatening), she refused to believe my statement that I knew I wasn't clinically depressed.
I'd been clinically depressed in my teens and twenties before I found Acupuncture and therefore I Knew. I knew and I know even now when I spoke to that ignorant person that I just lacked and still lack the
self hatred intrinsic to depression.
This bitch even presumed to lecture me about the work I was already doing and when I said I had good reason to be sad (my sister had died, all the great jobs I'd walked into in the eighties had dried up and the behaviour of my flatmate was becoming threatening), she refused to believe my statement that I knew I wasn't clinically depressed.
I'd been clinically depressed in my teens and twenties before I found Acupuncture and therefore I Knew. I knew and I know even now when I spoke to that ignorant person that I just lacked and still lack the
self hatred intrinsic to depression.
Then the change of Government. I went to a Social Security Tribunal at the demand of a
'"Welfare Rights" Lawyer'.
Initially, I said No most definately. I wanted to be off the Dole, and OK, I'd borrowed money to pay rent, but there was money in the offing and I knew it was coming and was willing to force the income thing. It was good, Arts Lawyers were helping me with a very juicy project which I'd inadvertantly blown before the abscess time, and I was despite the storm clouds feeling much better and very motivated.
'"Welfare Rights" Lawyer'.
Initially, I said No most definately. I wanted to be off the Dole, and OK, I'd borrowed money to pay rent, but there was money in the offing and I knew it was coming and was willing to force the income thing. It was good, Arts Lawyers were helping me with a very juicy project which I'd inadvertantly blown before the abscess time, and I was despite the storm clouds feeling much better and very motivated.
Well that Spiv of a Welfare Lawyer kept at me and eventually I went to the Tribunal and they decided that poverty, lack of assets, eviction and so on were reasonable causes to miss a couple of appointments at that old CES who hadn't found me any job I could have done in all that unexpected time of working and not earning and trying to gather a CV.
They once told me not to do voluntary work but I said I was gathering CV material and extending my range of contacts in the hope of hearing about work. All my past jobs had come through contacts, from people seeing and hearing my work & etc; the jobs I found then were jobs I knew I could do!
I'd had voice work for a short time after that early Nineties Recession, but then that dried up too.
Anyway that Tribunal agreed I was under enough stress to rationally miss appointments, and in truth once we found somewhere to live I was back at the CES begging to learn about the Internet, claiming my previous work in communications and education and yearning to work both part time and from home on account of my disabilities.
Well, the bomb fell as we were moving house, even as the flat mate insisting on smashing up my packing and my stuff before, during and after the move which wasn't much fun anyway.
You know, it really was a last straw when the Department Of Education, Training And Youth Affairs appealed that Social Securities verdict because, as their representative explained, they'd decided that they had to 'make and example' of me as an 'exponent of "alternative" medicine'. Huh?
Well I didn't know about Asperger's back then but I do know now that Acupuncture is very helpful to those who suffer from ADHD type symptoms and it certainly kept me going during the luxurious times when I had regular treatments.
As to missing appointments, well I got my days of the week mixed up twice last week alone and when I had an exhausting full time job way back when, I once travelled the weary miles from The Mountains to The Cross only to find out that it was Saturday and I'd have to go home again.
(Thank Goodness for weekly tickets!)
I love Acupuncture. Ever since I went to the horror dentist as a youngster and probably from some wrong prescriptions and a couple of operations gone horribly wrong, not to mention being a bit of a weakling anyway I just seem to lose my appetite when stressed. Stomach 36 helps in terms of Acupuncture and Bao he Wan helps with the herbal side of things. (All plants, no animal products!)
So there it was, I was being treated as a heretic and condemned to stay on The Dole just because I chose private dentistry over public and Traditional Chinese Medicine over a System which had seriously harmed me in more ways than I feel like describing right now.
OK, tomorrow the Journal from '98 just prior to that AAT business!
I still say Fuckem, I've had enough of idiots. I never expected to be on what they call 'Benefits' anyway except I am disabled and came across too many liars in my time. Huh!!!
I still say Fuckem, I've had enough of idiots. I never expected to be on what they call 'Benefits' anyway except I am disabled and came across too many liars in my time. Huh!!!
