For my 17th birthday my friend from History class gave me my first ACID trip. We sat down in her lounge room on a perfect summer night in her small little weatherboard unit in the sharp mountains of Belgrave Heights. Surrounded by multi-coloured walls which she and her partner had painted they handed me a small piece of paper and I swallowed.
I'd never heard of ACID before. I hadn't heard of terribly much before. My parents had sheltered to the point of not really even having during high school. People terrified me. Dorkiness felt like it was nowhere but me when I was at Bree's house. I didn't usually say what was on my mind - I said what I thought they wanted me to say. After taking the trip it was like I melted into the chair. There was a kind of little buzz around me and the space filled with wacky noises and weird stuff to see. Like a child, the world became all sensation and it was...mesmerising.
It's feels like the ultimate miscalculation when everybody seems to find you funny and can't work out why their laughing.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Chapter 18 - Draw a Line
It's a month since I've been out of rehab. I haven't relapsed. I still don't have a boyfriend. I am back at work and kicking goals. My boss says she is looking at getting me a job in TV. Apparently all that gym work and all those facials have finally paid off.
I'm at a hotel. It my friend Kelly's birthday. We are about to go out. There are lines of speed sitting on the table in front me.
Kelly snorts a line.
Her boyfriend snorts a line.
Kelly hands me a rolled-up fifty dollar bill.
"Have some" she says
I take it.
I lean over the speed and I look over to Kelly and her boyfriend who are giggling and kissing on the bed.
I look at the speed. I think about the day I felt that white light inside of me. I try to keep a boundary around that little feeling of something good inside of me.
I want a relationship. I want a good job. I want to be loved. I want somewhere nice to live. I want to be happy.
Speed is poison.
"Actually u can have this line if u want"
"Why?" Kellie asks
"I just don't feel like it. I'm happy enough without it"
"Ok" she says and without too much hesitation leans over and sucks it up.
Now. I'm clean. I'm not exactly happy but I am getting there. But if there is one thing worse than relapsing, it's being straight around two people who are off their trolley on amphetamines.
I knew I was in for a long night full of long stories that go absolutely nowhere.
I knew I would go to sleep tonight and get up tomorrow and be able to function and do stuff I like doing during the day.
I knew I was going to be ok.
Now that didn't take much effort did it? Just a nervous breakdown and 8 weeks in a rehab centre.
I'm at a hotel. It my friend Kelly's birthday. We are about to go out. There are lines of speed sitting on the table in front me.
Kelly snorts a line.
Her boyfriend snorts a line.
Kelly hands me a rolled-up fifty dollar bill.
"Have some" she says
I take it.
I lean over the speed and I look over to Kelly and her boyfriend who are giggling and kissing on the bed.
I look at the speed. I think about the day I felt that white light inside of me. I try to keep a boundary around that little feeling of something good inside of me.
I want a relationship. I want a good job. I want to be loved. I want somewhere nice to live. I want to be happy.
Speed is poison.
"Actually u can have this line if u want"
"Why?" Kellie asks
"I just don't feel like it. I'm happy enough without it"
"Ok" she says and without too much hesitation leans over and sucks it up.
Now. I'm clean. I'm not exactly happy but I am getting there. But if there is one thing worse than relapsing, it's being straight around two people who are off their trolley on amphetamines.
I knew I was in for a long night full of long stories that go absolutely nowhere.
I knew I would go to sleep tonight and get up tomorrow and be able to function and do stuff I like doing during the day.
I knew I was going to be ok.
Now that didn't take much effort did it? Just a nervous breakdown and 8 weeks in a rehab centre.
Chapter 17 - Quiet Voices
Final feelings check. I say I am leaving in the morning. I tell everyone how much I’ve changed. I say it was the best experience of my life. I say I’ve learnt lots and lots. I say I cried over things that happened to me 15 years ago. I say that sometimes the nicest people are the angriest. I say drug abuse is a form of anger.
The guys in villa 2 say they are sad to me go. They tell me I'm a good bloke and that I was fun to have around. They tell me I am good at Bolivian Tennis.
Renee comes up to me.
"I'm sorry we had that fight" she says
"Yeah, I didn't mean for it to get so out of control" I concede
"I forgive u Luke cause I know what u said didn't come from u, it came from the Devil"
I smile at Renee. I hug her. She thinks if someone disagrees with her it must be the work of evil. I hug her tightly; she's more lost that just about anyone in here.
"I made something for you' she says.
She hands me a giant piece of cardboard that's in the shape of the ABC swirl.
"I cut it and decorated it and I got everyone to sign it"
I look it. She has taken a lot of care in making it. It's perfect.
I turn it around. There are signatures all over it. People write to stay strong and stay safe and say that "I'm a lovely person". Some people have written their phone numbers along with their message.
"U will be sorely missed around here, Luke. U will leave a big gap in Logan House when ur gone"
"Renee, I don't know what to say"
"It's ok, Luke, ur my friend. I love my friends"
I hug her again and I walk off and I feel a bit embarrassed. I ripped this girl to shreds the other day and now she's done one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me.
Sam walks up to me.
"I did it" he says
"Did what?"
"I walked up to Mel and said 'fashion police, this is a road block'. Then I told her that the way she dresses is fucking shit, that she has no sense of color or style and she put some make-up on"
"What did she say?"
"She laughed at first, and then I told her I wasn't joking. Then she stormed off"
"Oh lord Sam"
"Well I got sick of bitching about her dress sense, I thought she should know what everyone thinks of the shithouse fucking clothes she wears everyday"
"Sam, r u ready to go?"
"Yeah I am, I'm leaving in two days. I am going to be moving with two chicks and I am going to go to Church and get a job and sell my music"
"And drugs?"
"I'm over it. I've found a new life. I might have a drink every now and then, but that's it"
"And Sam, u might be a bitch but I don't think ur a sociopath"
"Make sure u catch up with me when ur out"
"I will mate, I will"
And he hugs me. And I hug him back. And I realise that guys can have friendships just as deep and just as weird as females do.
Morning and it's my last day. The Lorikeets fly in to be fed. The guys all outside the villa and smoke and throw bread and the birds. I say goodbye. I scan the property one last time. I look over the mountains and the paddocks and the river.
Britney Spears does not go to this rehab. This rehab has changed my life.
Shirley comes to say goodbye.
"Remember who u are, Luke, ur a confident, outgoing, outspoken person. U r most likeable when u r just being urself. Never forget that"
I get in the retard bus and the counselor drives off. We drive out the driveway. I'm free and with freedom comes responsibility. With freedom comes heartache and rejection and pain and not getting what u want and work and alarm clocks and annoying people and crazy people and friends who drive u crazy. I remind myself that everything outside of myself is out of my control, but I will always have me. I will always have my essence.
The counselor drops me at the station.
"Good luck, mate, I'm sure you'll be fine"
"I hope so"
"Hey, did u hear about what happened to Jarrod? I suppose u haven't. We only found out this morning"
"No, what, I can only imagine"
"He snuck off yesterday afternoon and got his hands on some drugs and he overdosed. He's dead"
"Jarrod's dead"
"Yeah, bloody sad isn't it?"
"It's awful. It's truly fucking awful"
The counselor drives off. I'm waiting for the train. Jarrod I'm sure would have just been trying to turn the voices off in his head.
Some of us are lucky, some of us can douse our demons - some of us can learn to keep our darkness under control. Jarrod couldn't. The only way he could kill his demons was to kill himself as well.
The guys in villa 2 say they are sad to me go. They tell me I'm a good bloke and that I was fun to have around. They tell me I am good at Bolivian Tennis.
Renee comes up to me.
"I'm sorry we had that fight" she says
"Yeah, I didn't mean for it to get so out of control" I concede
"I forgive u Luke cause I know what u said didn't come from u, it came from the Devil"
I smile at Renee. I hug her. She thinks if someone disagrees with her it must be the work of evil. I hug her tightly; she's more lost that just about anyone in here.
"I made something for you' she says.
She hands me a giant piece of cardboard that's in the shape of the ABC swirl.
"I cut it and decorated it and I got everyone to sign it"
I look it. She has taken a lot of care in making it. It's perfect.
I turn it around. There are signatures all over it. People write to stay strong and stay safe and say that "I'm a lovely person". Some people have written their phone numbers along with their message.
"U will be sorely missed around here, Luke. U will leave a big gap in Logan House when ur gone"
"Renee, I don't know what to say"
"It's ok, Luke, ur my friend. I love my friends"
I hug her again and I walk off and I feel a bit embarrassed. I ripped this girl to shreds the other day and now she's done one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me.
Sam walks up to me.
"I did it" he says
"Did what?"
"I walked up to Mel and said 'fashion police, this is a road block'. Then I told her that the way she dresses is fucking shit, that she has no sense of color or style and she put some make-up on"
"What did she say?"
"She laughed at first, and then I told her I wasn't joking. Then she stormed off"
"Oh lord Sam"
"Well I got sick of bitching about her dress sense, I thought she should know what everyone thinks of the shithouse fucking clothes she wears everyday"
"Sam, r u ready to go?"
"Yeah I am, I'm leaving in two days. I am going to be moving with two chicks and I am going to go to Church and get a job and sell my music"
"And drugs?"
"I'm over it. I've found a new life. I might have a drink every now and then, but that's it"
"And Sam, u might be a bitch but I don't think ur a sociopath"
"Make sure u catch up with me when ur out"
"I will mate, I will"
And he hugs me. And I hug him back. And I realise that guys can have friendships just as deep and just as weird as females do.
Morning and it's my last day. The Lorikeets fly in to be fed. The guys all outside the villa and smoke and throw bread and the birds. I say goodbye. I scan the property one last time. I look over the mountains and the paddocks and the river.
Britney Spears does not go to this rehab. This rehab has changed my life.
Shirley comes to say goodbye.
"Remember who u are, Luke, ur a confident, outgoing, outspoken person. U r most likeable when u r just being urself. Never forget that"
I get in the retard bus and the counselor drives off. We drive out the driveway. I'm free and with freedom comes responsibility. With freedom comes heartache and rejection and pain and not getting what u want and work and alarm clocks and annoying people and crazy people and friends who drive u crazy. I remind myself that everything outside of myself is out of my control, but I will always have me. I will always have my essence.
The counselor drops me at the station.
"Good luck, mate, I'm sure you'll be fine"
"I hope so"
"Hey, did u hear about what happened to Jarrod? I suppose u haven't. We only found out this morning"
"No, what, I can only imagine"
"He snuck off yesterday afternoon and got his hands on some drugs and he overdosed. He's dead"
"Jarrod's dead"
"Yeah, bloody sad isn't it?"
"It's awful. It's truly fucking awful"
The counselor drives off. I'm waiting for the train. Jarrod I'm sure would have just been trying to turn the voices off in his head.
Some of us are lucky, some of us can douse our demons - some of us can learn to keep our darkness under control. Jarrod couldn't. The only way he could kill his demons was to kill himself as well.
Chapter 16 - Too much ACID and the Apocalypse
Classes start again. We talk about overcoming anxiety and how to have positive self esteem. I feel a little bit over it but in a good way. I feel my essence for fleeting little moments during the day.
Things in rehab go on pretty as normal. We have a new guy Christos come in who sits up all night laughing at nothing and says that bugs and ants came from a different planet. Apparently he knew this because he visited that planet.
I organise a performance night to replace to old, patronising games night. It goes well. I hosted it and ran the whole thing to success. Five people come up to me and thank me afterwards. People sang songs, read poetry and did stand up comedy. It was beautiful.
“Don't overlook the magnitude of what you have done,” Sam says “You empowered so many people tonight.”
I am in fine form right now. I actually think I like being me.
I am starting to feel that I will be ready to go very soon. Maybe even in a week. But I had to convince Shirley; I needed her to give a reference to my work so I could get my job back.
Most of all, I want to test myself in the real world. I want to leave the cult.
Classes. We talk validation and invalidation. I make a list of invalidations in my life. Stuff like “you’re being dramatic” and “you lack common sense”. Shirley says invalidations were the key to understanding your self-esteem.
Renee says she has lots of invalidations in her life. She starts weeping in class; she says she was always told she wasn’t as good as her sisters who have professional careers. She said her Dad told her she deserved to be beaten up by her boyfriend when she was pregnant. She said she was the scapegoat in her family.
“You have to let all this stuff out, Renee” Shirley says.
After class Renee came and sat next to me.
“Do u feel better?” I ask
“Yep, much better” she says
“That’s good, u seem a lot more together than when I first met u”
“What was I like?”
“Neurotic”
Rachel laughed and patted me on the shoulder
“Really, what else”
“Well to be honest, Renee I thought of u as a flakey hippie chick, but I dont think that now”
“A flakey hippie chick, how funny”
“Dont worry, I dont put people in boxes now”
“Let me show u a picture”
Renee went and got a photo of herself. She was 18 in the photo, fresh skinned, beautiful, with bright red hair and tripping off her face on ACID.
“There's a flakey hippie 4 u” she says
“U r gorgeous Rachel” I says
“Thanks, I WAS gorgeous and I want to thank-you for being a friend”
“Rachel, I do really like u” now was the time to bring it up “And y'know Ive never been friends with a Christian Fundamentalist before”
“That's really good, Luke, the bible means everything to me”
“I respect that Rachel, but I've had some bad experiences with Christian Fundamentalists. My ex-partner's Mum was a fundamentalist. She refused to accept his homosexuality. She took to a school to convert him to being straight. He was gay thru and thru and never had a heterosexual thought in his mind. Being told he was just wrong destroyed him. He felt like he was a mistake. He cut his wrists, he tried to kill himself”
“Well I think that's awful” she says “People sometimes take the bible out of context”
“Yeah well, she once said 'dont make me choose between u and the bible' to her own son”
“I think that's fanaticism” Renee says
“So Renee that's why it worries me when people tell me they are a fundamentalist”
“Christianity has made me such a better person, Luke”
“I understand that, it's just that I went to a Christian High School and I believe the bible is part fact and part mythology. The bible is a sacred text, but it is not to be taken literally”
“Your wrong, Luke”
“No Renee that is my perspective and u have ur perspective”
“No I have the bible's word”
I could feel myself start to get annoyed.
“There's a massive circularity in what ur saying Rachel. How do you know the bible is true, because it says that in the bible? You are going around in circles. I understand the idea of faith, but faith needs to start where reason finish – it doesn’t need to negate reason. I think biblical literalism is a massive error in thinking”
“The bible is the word of God, I dont say that – the bible says that”
“Ok fine, so what do u think about homosexuality?”
“I dont judge anyone, I dont have a problem with people of the same sex having partners, but I think sex between two men in unnatural”
“In what way?”
“God created Adam and Eve, that's just how our bodies work”
“Guys have a prostate gland up their arse”
“Yeah so it feels nice to poo”
“And vaginas were meant for pissing”
“Girls dont get fucked in their urethra”
“And girl’s dont have a prostate gland up their arse. If we take your reasoning Renee that would mouths are meant for head jobs”
“Luke we are all sinners”
“Rachel, I think homosexuality would meet the criteria because it doesn’t hurt anyone”
“Prostitution doesn’t hurt anyone in that sense and that's a sin”
“Prostitution does hurt the prostitutes themselves. I'm talking about sex between two adults who love each other very much”
“What more do u want me to say Luke?”
“Nothing I'm simply explaining my perspective, Rachel and that is Fundamentalism is the cause of so much hatred and suffering in this world”
“I dont known what else to say, Luke, the bible has given me so much strength. I know I have unconditional love from God the father”
“How do u know God is even a man?'
“Cause the bible says that”
“Well I think God is in my soul, Rachel and God is so awesome it would be beyond gender”
I think about the warm glow I'd had in my chest the other day
“God is all around us, God is in us, God is massive and unknowable”
“That's New Age crap Luke”
“Well from the sounds of things Renee, God is the father u never had in the real world. He is the person who gives u unconditional love”
“Ok Luke, I can tap into the Holy Spirit but I can't be perfect like God”
“That's right, we are both imperfect and that means your interpretation of the bible is imperfect”
“Yes, but I’m not interpreting the bible, I'm just reading the facts”
“You can never escape your own interpretation, you can escape culture, you can’t escape social conditioning, and you cannot escape the limitations of human intellect. You have to admit that not only about Ur own interpretation, but also about the people who wrote the bible itself”
“No Luke”
“Yes Renee, u r drawing conclusions from what u r reading. There is no escaping that. Where does it even say anything in the bible about two women sleeping together – that's a conclusion uve drawn and therefore it could be wrong”
“It's Gods word, it can’t be wrong”
“Circularity again, Renee. I wonder if Ur not just craving certainty and dogma in your life. It’s a bit arrogant to assume your opinions are as omnipotent as God itself.
“Luke, I'll say this again. I know my spirituality is good for me because Ive become such a great person since I started to read the bible”
Now I am mad.
“Renee, the whole time I have been in rehab, uve bitched about people, uve pushed people out, uve abused people and u slept with a guy out of wedlock. Lots of people in here dislike u because Ur so dogmatic. Uve been a drug dealer, u r a drug addict, uve had ur kids taken off u, ur fucked up, u have fucked up literalist beliefs. Its all part of being the screwed up bitch u r today”
“Ur attacking me” she says
“I'm attacking you because your beliefs are what cause wars, terrorism and gay teenagers to kill themselves”
“So I'm now being blamed for all the sins in the world?”
“Renee I'm not blaming u personally. I'm saying that its thinking like yours that leads to so much evil in the world”
“Dont attack me just because uve had bad experiences with fundamentalists, were not all the same you know. I see the devil coming into some fundamentalists as well and making them do bad things”
“Fundamentalism is the work of the devil itself”
“No, my Christianity gives me certainty and the feeling that I'm being loved”
“I respect that and I’m not trying to take that away from u”
“Well u can’t”
“But I just hope one of Ur sons doesn’t grow up to be gay”
“Why?”
“Cause it would be a massive spiritual violation for him to have a mother with fucked-up views like yours”
“If my son was a murder I would still love him”
“Yeah, but homosexuality isn’t murder. It doesn’t harm anyone. It’s a form of love”
Things are getting a little personal. Renee stands up.
“Fine, u ask God urself” she says pointing to the sky
“Renee ur starting to sound like a psychotic now. Uve run out of things to say, so Ur asking me ask the clouds?”
“And how dare u Luke bring my kids into this?”
“How dare u equate murder with homosexuality?”
“Stop attacking me”
“Ur thinking is highly screwed-up Renee- bottom line -facts are different from opinions and Ur opinions are bizarre and hypocritical”
“I'm not changing my mind, Luke; I am just repeating God's word”
“Ur thinking kills teenage boys Renee – that is a fact”
“How dare u say that to me?”
“It’s a fact Renee, not an opinion”
“I’m going now” she says
“Good, my advice to u Renee is for God's sake get an education and stop thinking like a bloody redneck”
“I'm not a redneck; one of my kids is half-black”
“Renee u think that penis goes in vagina and that's all there is too it. That's how an uneducated redneck thinks”
“Wateva” she said walking off and tears welling up in her eyes
“God and ur opinions are too very different things Renee, u fucking genius, and u”
I feel great and I am shaking. Did Indeed to get that off my chest or what?
I go back to the Villa and tell Jimmy.
Renee should know better than to fuck with the alpha poof.
A few hours later and I see her weeping at the table outside her villa.
“Uve really upset her Man” Jimmy says "u should really go and talk with her"
“That's not my problem Jimmy; she needs to sort her own shit out”
And that's exactly how I feel, I've suffered enough homophobia in my life – her dogmatic views and inability to defend them are quite simply- not my fucking problem.
I have my 8th counseling session with Shirley. I have to convince her to give me clearance to go after 8 weeks, instead of the 12.
“I'm ready, Shirley” I say “Ive discovered my soul”
“That’s wonderful, u dont need me anymore”
“Will u tell my work that?”
“I can tell them that, I can say uve been traveling well and that uve experienced significant personal growth and insight. I will tell them that uve changed Ur beliefs and the way u see urself. I will them about your increase in self-confidence and Ur increase in self-esteem. I will them how u ran the performance night and how successful it was”
“That would be amazing Shirley”
“U have gained a great deal of insight, Luke. U dont need me anymore. I can look at u and say u dont have any major issues. There is nothing really wrong with u Luke. U have a few issues, but so does everyone”
“Well Shirley, I think dealing with the high school stuff, My Mum and guilt, my sexuality and boundaries. These were massive things”
“See Luke, u dont need me anymore” she said in a mock whiney tone
“And Shirley, I feel like I have a soul now”
Shirley grins
“And I feel for others, but I can shut it off. Like the other day, I had a big argument with Renee the other day and I haven’t stewing over it”
“Another boundary issue, Luke, but in a good way”
“Yeah I just think that her fundamentalism is a part of her problem, not mine” I am baiting Shirley to agree with me
“That's right, if u took that away from her she might just fall apart”
“I think the bible is part myth and part fact, u can’t take it all literally. I went to a Christian High School, I did expelled, but that’s what I learnt”
“Well ur just a shining example then aren’t u?”
“Shut-up Shirley”
“Sorry, Luke, but what’s with all this talk about religion? What does it mean for u?”
“Well I'm starting to feel a bit spiritual for the first time in my life”
“God is what u understand it to be Luke, it’s a way of making meaning”
“R u religious Shirley”
I knew I was crossing a line by asking that question
“Yes, not big-time literalist, but I am”
“So Ur Christian?”
“No, Luke, I'm a Moslem”
Oh my god, Shirley is a Moslem? I would never have picked that.
“Ur a Moslem really?”
“Yes”
“Do u do prayers and Ramadan?”
“I do Ramadan, but not the prayers. Some Moslems would think it’s a sin for me to wear t-shirts to work, but for me God is about love – plain and simple”
“I dare u to wear a Burka to work”
“Luke it’s bad enough being seen as a black person without doing that”
For some strange reason that sets me off. Not Shirley as well! What if she has moral objections to homosexuality???
“Shirley Y’know homosexuals in many Islamic countries are beheaded”
“That's right, it’s hypocritical. Authorities will look over women being raped, but will publicly stone gay men”
“U r such an interesting lady Shirley, but do u think homosexuality is immoral?”
“No, I believe that God has a plan for u and part of that plan is that Ur gay”
I am not satisfied with that
“But does that mean u would be opposed to sleeping with a woman urself”
“Not on religious grounds, I just dont feel like it”:
“I dont blame u Shirley, men r good”
“That’s it, see Luke I am complex and different just like u”
“Shirley I just want to say I’m not just telling u what u want to hear. I have boundaries; I may even have a soul. I will not be taking drugs ever again. I will not poison my soul”
“I'm going to cry like a baby because u dont need me anymore” she says “Luke, more and more people are taking drugs and they are getting younger. It is a crisis in our society”
“Why do you think more people are taking drugs?”
“Um....I think society has become too individualised. Society is fragmenting, community is breaking down, people are lonely. Young people take drugs to stop feeling bad and too fit in”
“That's really interesting Shirley. Loneliness is an awful feeling. Ur own sense of self can be lost when u try to overcome feeling lonely”
“Dont forget that, Luke, and dont forget you’re just wonderful as u r. Dont isolate urself.”
“Well I know I dont feel isolated for being gay anymore”
The session ends. I go to the gym. I tell Sam I am leaving in a week. He says he will leave with me
Sam sits starting ahead
“Now I can do all the stuff Ive wanted to do, but Ive been too scared of getting kicking out”
He puts down his dumbbell and heads off. It was a sociopath on a mission - a hilariously frightening prospect given his slight lack of ability to feel empathy.
Things in rehab go on pretty as normal. We have a new guy Christos come in who sits up all night laughing at nothing and says that bugs and ants came from a different planet. Apparently he knew this because he visited that planet.
I organise a performance night to replace to old, patronising games night. It goes well. I hosted it and ran the whole thing to success. Five people come up to me and thank me afterwards. People sang songs, read poetry and did stand up comedy. It was beautiful.
“Don't overlook the magnitude of what you have done,” Sam says “You empowered so many people tonight.”
I am in fine form right now. I actually think I like being me.
I am starting to feel that I will be ready to go very soon. Maybe even in a week. But I had to convince Shirley; I needed her to give a reference to my work so I could get my job back.
Most of all, I want to test myself in the real world. I want to leave the cult.
Classes. We talk validation and invalidation. I make a list of invalidations in my life. Stuff like “you’re being dramatic” and “you lack common sense”. Shirley says invalidations were the key to understanding your self-esteem.
Renee says she has lots of invalidations in her life. She starts weeping in class; she says she was always told she wasn’t as good as her sisters who have professional careers. She said her Dad told her she deserved to be beaten up by her boyfriend when she was pregnant. She said she was the scapegoat in her family.
“You have to let all this stuff out, Renee” Shirley says.
After class Renee came and sat next to me.
“Do u feel better?” I ask
“Yep, much better” she says
“That’s good, u seem a lot more together than when I first met u”
“What was I like?”
“Neurotic”
Rachel laughed and patted me on the shoulder
“Really, what else”
“Well to be honest, Renee I thought of u as a flakey hippie chick, but I dont think that now”
“A flakey hippie chick, how funny”
“Dont worry, I dont put people in boxes now”
“Let me show u a picture”
Renee went and got a photo of herself. She was 18 in the photo, fresh skinned, beautiful, with bright red hair and tripping off her face on ACID.
“There's a flakey hippie 4 u” she says
“U r gorgeous Rachel” I says
“Thanks, I WAS gorgeous and I want to thank-you for being a friend”
“Rachel, I do really like u” now was the time to bring it up “And y'know Ive never been friends with a Christian Fundamentalist before”
“That's really good, Luke, the bible means everything to me”
“I respect that Rachel, but I've had some bad experiences with Christian Fundamentalists. My ex-partner's Mum was a fundamentalist. She refused to accept his homosexuality. She took to a school to convert him to being straight. He was gay thru and thru and never had a heterosexual thought in his mind. Being told he was just wrong destroyed him. He felt like he was a mistake. He cut his wrists, he tried to kill himself”
“Well I think that's awful” she says “People sometimes take the bible out of context”
“Yeah well, she once said 'dont make me choose between u and the bible' to her own son”
“I think that's fanaticism” Renee says
“So Renee that's why it worries me when people tell me they are a fundamentalist”
“Christianity has made me such a better person, Luke”
“I understand that, it's just that I went to a Christian High School and I believe the bible is part fact and part mythology. The bible is a sacred text, but it is not to be taken literally”
“Your wrong, Luke”
“No Renee that is my perspective and u have ur perspective”
“No I have the bible's word”
I could feel myself start to get annoyed.
“There's a massive circularity in what ur saying Rachel. How do you know the bible is true, because it says that in the bible? You are going around in circles. I understand the idea of faith, but faith needs to start where reason finish – it doesn’t need to negate reason. I think biblical literalism is a massive error in thinking”
“The bible is the word of God, I dont say that – the bible says that”
“Ok fine, so what do u think about homosexuality?”
“I dont judge anyone, I dont have a problem with people of the same sex having partners, but I think sex between two men in unnatural”
“In what way?”
“God created Adam and Eve, that's just how our bodies work”
“Guys have a prostate gland up their arse”
“Yeah so it feels nice to poo”
“And vaginas were meant for pissing”
“Girls dont get fucked in their urethra”
“And girl’s dont have a prostate gland up their arse. If we take your reasoning Renee that would mouths are meant for head jobs”
“Luke we are all sinners”
“Rachel, I think homosexuality would meet the criteria because it doesn’t hurt anyone”
“Prostitution doesn’t hurt anyone in that sense and that's a sin”
“Prostitution does hurt the prostitutes themselves. I'm talking about sex between two adults who love each other very much”
“What more do u want me to say Luke?”
“Nothing I'm simply explaining my perspective, Rachel and that is Fundamentalism is the cause of so much hatred and suffering in this world”
“I dont known what else to say, Luke, the bible has given me so much strength. I know I have unconditional love from God the father”
“How do u know God is even a man?'
“Cause the bible says that”
“Well I think God is in my soul, Rachel and God is so awesome it would be beyond gender”
I think about the warm glow I'd had in my chest the other day
“God is all around us, God is in us, God is massive and unknowable”
“That's New Age crap Luke”
“Well from the sounds of things Renee, God is the father u never had in the real world. He is the person who gives u unconditional love”
“Ok Luke, I can tap into the Holy Spirit but I can't be perfect like God”
“That's right, we are both imperfect and that means your interpretation of the bible is imperfect”
“Yes, but I’m not interpreting the bible, I'm just reading the facts”
“You can never escape your own interpretation, you can escape culture, you can’t escape social conditioning, and you cannot escape the limitations of human intellect. You have to admit that not only about Ur own interpretation, but also about the people who wrote the bible itself”
“No Luke”
“Yes Renee, u r drawing conclusions from what u r reading. There is no escaping that. Where does it even say anything in the bible about two women sleeping together – that's a conclusion uve drawn and therefore it could be wrong”
“It's Gods word, it can’t be wrong”
“Circularity again, Renee. I wonder if Ur not just craving certainty and dogma in your life. It’s a bit arrogant to assume your opinions are as omnipotent as God itself.
“Luke, I'll say this again. I know my spirituality is good for me because Ive become such a great person since I started to read the bible”
Now I am mad.
“Renee, the whole time I have been in rehab, uve bitched about people, uve pushed people out, uve abused people and u slept with a guy out of wedlock. Lots of people in here dislike u because Ur so dogmatic. Uve been a drug dealer, u r a drug addict, uve had ur kids taken off u, ur fucked up, u have fucked up literalist beliefs. Its all part of being the screwed up bitch u r today”
“Ur attacking me” she says
“I'm attacking you because your beliefs are what cause wars, terrorism and gay teenagers to kill themselves”
“So I'm now being blamed for all the sins in the world?”
“Renee I'm not blaming u personally. I'm saying that its thinking like yours that leads to so much evil in the world”
“Dont attack me just because uve had bad experiences with fundamentalists, were not all the same you know. I see the devil coming into some fundamentalists as well and making them do bad things”
“Fundamentalism is the work of the devil itself”
“No, my Christianity gives me certainty and the feeling that I'm being loved”
“I respect that and I’m not trying to take that away from u”
“Well u can’t”
“But I just hope one of Ur sons doesn’t grow up to be gay”
“Why?”
“Cause it would be a massive spiritual violation for him to have a mother with fucked-up views like yours”
“If my son was a murder I would still love him”
“Yeah, but homosexuality isn’t murder. It doesn’t harm anyone. It’s a form of love”
Things are getting a little personal. Renee stands up.
“Fine, u ask God urself” she says pointing to the sky
“Renee ur starting to sound like a psychotic now. Uve run out of things to say, so Ur asking me ask the clouds?”
“And how dare u Luke bring my kids into this?”
“How dare u equate murder with homosexuality?”
“Stop attacking me”
“Ur thinking is highly screwed-up Renee- bottom line -facts are different from opinions and Ur opinions are bizarre and hypocritical”
“I'm not changing my mind, Luke; I am just repeating God's word”
“Ur thinking kills teenage boys Renee – that is a fact”
“How dare u say that to me?”
“It’s a fact Renee, not an opinion”
“I’m going now” she says
“Good, my advice to u Renee is for God's sake get an education and stop thinking like a bloody redneck”
“I'm not a redneck; one of my kids is half-black”
“Renee u think that penis goes in vagina and that's all there is too it. That's how an uneducated redneck thinks”
“Wateva” she said walking off and tears welling up in her eyes
“God and ur opinions are too very different things Renee, u fucking genius, and u”
I feel great and I am shaking. Did Indeed to get that off my chest or what?
I go back to the Villa and tell Jimmy.
Renee should know better than to fuck with the alpha poof.
A few hours later and I see her weeping at the table outside her villa.
“Uve really upset her Man” Jimmy says "u should really go and talk with her"
“That's not my problem Jimmy; she needs to sort her own shit out”
And that's exactly how I feel, I've suffered enough homophobia in my life – her dogmatic views and inability to defend them are quite simply- not my fucking problem.
I have my 8th counseling session with Shirley. I have to convince her to give me clearance to go after 8 weeks, instead of the 12.
“I'm ready, Shirley” I say “Ive discovered my soul”
“That’s wonderful, u dont need me anymore”
“Will u tell my work that?”
“I can tell them that, I can say uve been traveling well and that uve experienced significant personal growth and insight. I will tell them that uve changed Ur beliefs and the way u see urself. I will them about your increase in self-confidence and Ur increase in self-esteem. I will them how u ran the performance night and how successful it was”
“That would be amazing Shirley”
“U have gained a great deal of insight, Luke. U dont need me anymore. I can look at u and say u dont have any major issues. There is nothing really wrong with u Luke. U have a few issues, but so does everyone”
“Well Shirley, I think dealing with the high school stuff, My Mum and guilt, my sexuality and boundaries. These were massive things”
“See Luke, u dont need me anymore” she said in a mock whiney tone
“And Shirley, I feel like I have a soul now”
Shirley grins
“And I feel for others, but I can shut it off. Like the other day, I had a big argument with Renee the other day and I haven’t stewing over it”
“Another boundary issue, Luke, but in a good way”
“Yeah I just think that her fundamentalism is a part of her problem, not mine” I am baiting Shirley to agree with me
“That's right, if u took that away from her she might just fall apart”
“I think the bible is part myth and part fact, u can’t take it all literally. I went to a Christian High School, I did expelled, but that’s what I learnt”
“Well ur just a shining example then aren’t u?”
“Shut-up Shirley”
“Sorry, Luke, but what’s with all this talk about religion? What does it mean for u?”
“Well I'm starting to feel a bit spiritual for the first time in my life”
“God is what u understand it to be Luke, it’s a way of making meaning”
“R u religious Shirley”
I knew I was crossing a line by asking that question
“Yes, not big-time literalist, but I am”
“So Ur Christian?”
“No, Luke, I'm a Moslem”
Oh my god, Shirley is a Moslem? I would never have picked that.
“Ur a Moslem really?”
“Yes”
“Do u do prayers and Ramadan?”
“I do Ramadan, but not the prayers. Some Moslems would think it’s a sin for me to wear t-shirts to work, but for me God is about love – plain and simple”
“I dare u to wear a Burka to work”
“Luke it’s bad enough being seen as a black person without doing that”
For some strange reason that sets me off. Not Shirley as well! What if she has moral objections to homosexuality???
“Shirley Y’know homosexuals in many Islamic countries are beheaded”
“That's right, it’s hypocritical. Authorities will look over women being raped, but will publicly stone gay men”
“U r such an interesting lady Shirley, but do u think homosexuality is immoral?”
“No, I believe that God has a plan for u and part of that plan is that Ur gay”
I am not satisfied with that
“But does that mean u would be opposed to sleeping with a woman urself”
“Not on religious grounds, I just dont feel like it”:
“I dont blame u Shirley, men r good”
“That’s it, see Luke I am complex and different just like u”
“Shirley I just want to say I’m not just telling u what u want to hear. I have boundaries; I may even have a soul. I will not be taking drugs ever again. I will not poison my soul”
“I'm going to cry like a baby because u dont need me anymore” she says “Luke, more and more people are taking drugs and they are getting younger. It is a crisis in our society”
“Why do you think more people are taking drugs?”
“Um....I think society has become too individualised. Society is fragmenting, community is breaking down, people are lonely. Young people take drugs to stop feeling bad and too fit in”
“That's really interesting Shirley. Loneliness is an awful feeling. Ur own sense of self can be lost when u try to overcome feeling lonely”
“Dont forget that, Luke, and dont forget you’re just wonderful as u r. Dont isolate urself.”
“Well I know I dont feel isolated for being gay anymore”
The session ends. I go to the gym. I tell Sam I am leaving in a week. He says he will leave with me
Sam sits starting ahead
“Now I can do all the stuff Ive wanted to do, but Ive been too scared of getting kicking out”
He puts down his dumbbell and heads off. It was a sociopath on a mission - a hilariously frightening prospect given his slight lack of ability to feel empathy.
Chapter 15 - Hillsong Anonymous
I decide I will go out on the weekend. I decide I am going to ring Kelvin.
I am fucking hopeless when it comes to guys. I was smitten from the first time I saw him. Half-Spanish, half-Maltese, 25 with blue eyes, once a drug dealer now a fashion designer.
I met him in a club and went to his house the next day. I was too scared to make a move. He'd been playing on my mind and the Zyprexa couldn't switch him off.
Now I was going to ring him and I am prepared for him to tell me he was 'busy'.
Part of me even hopes I will be rejected. Part of me hopes that I can cope with it and move on.
I call him.
"I am in town tomorrow, do u wanna catch up?"
"Yeah sure, ring me when u get into town"
It's a beautiful day.
Sunday. My day leave arrived. I catch the train into the city. I feel alienated and strange as I walked around Brisbane's CBD. I see young boys and girls in black sitting around shop fronts with their big fancy well decorated facades. I am out of the loop. I feel like an Amish person on a day trip into the real world. A few weeks ago I was walking around the city with my facade. Now the persona is gone. I've been stripped and I feel ripped red fucking raw. It seems a bit like the ghost of the old me floating about the city and now I don't know where I fitted anymore now that I'd died. I feel invisible, spooky and lost in limbo. I catch the face of my corpse in the mirror at a bookshop. I hate it. Corpses have wrinkles. I have wrinkles. I go and have a haircut. I walk to Kelvin's house convinced that he doesn't like me like I like him and I hate being humiliated like this.
I knock of Kelvin's door. He let's me in. We drink tea and eat muffins. He shows me photos of him in the society pages of the Courier Mail. He is astonishingly beautiful. He talks about being a drug dealer. He puts on a big act. He looks at me really closed up. He tells me I should stay the full 12 weeks in rehab. His socialite friend turns up. She shows me the blisters on her lips from smoking a meth pipe. It makes me felt sick.
I leave and I kiss him on the cheek and I feel totally dejected.
It's time to go back to rehab. I am worried that I'm becoming institutionalised. I am worried because at the moment I want nothing more than to go back to the beautiful cult of rehab. I want the rules, the structure. I want to be told off for not making my bed and I want the therapy.
I want clear boundaries again.
I go back to rehab and its feelings check time again, I tell everyone I spent the day hanging out with a pretentious wanker and a stupid bitch with meth sores on her mouth.
Everyone claps.
I tell Justin about my day and showed him the picture of my 'new friends' in the paper. I tell him my day was shit. I don't tell him exactly why. I just say the people were pretentious and that they bragged about drug use.
Justin tears out the picture on the paper and blows his nose on it. I like Justin. But I don't tell him I am really upset cos I am scared Kelvin didn’t really like me the same way I like him.
Its day one, week six and the second week of my transformation phase. We map our family history, we draw a family tree and color it in with highlighters where people had substance abuse or had a mental illness. Nearly every male on dad's side of the family had a mental illness. I have three uncles with schizophrenia, an alcoholic grandfather, a grandfather who killed himself, two parents on anti depressants, and basically generation upon generation of mentally ill white thrash. It was strangely empowering to blame your genes for shit going on in life.
We also include pets in the family tree.
Sam talks about his pets.
“I have had seven pets die from neglect or abuse,” he says.
“How?” asks Shirley.
“I forget to feed them or I did experiments on them”.
“Experiments?”
“Yeah, once when I was 14, I buried a cat in a box and it died.”
“Why?”
“Someone told me a cat could survive that”.
“Why didn’t you just ring Doctor Karl you sick bastard,” I ask.
Sam starts laughing.
At the end of class, I meet with Shirley. It's therapy session number 7. I was jumping out of my skin to tell her what happened on the weekend. I don’t want to lie to her. I cut right to the chase.
“I am scared of being rejected,” I tell her.
We talk for an hour. I tell her about my sex life. She tells me I was a predator. I tell her about my taste in guys. She tells me I am controlling. I tell her about my insecurities about the way I look. She tells me not to worry cos I am 'da bomb'. I tell her I like pretty young boys hanging off me. She tells me I was like a heterosexual man who had bimbos hanging off him. She says “you are like, look everyone, this is my bitch, I own him.”
She tells me I treat men like objects. She tells me it’s sad that I need so much validation. I ask her why she thinks I am controlling. She said, “Luke, you act like a predator searching for prey. I suspect it's because you have been abused and I suspect it's because your mother is controlling. Control is Ur understanding of love in a relationship. Wanting control someone else is really about Ur own insecurities”
I leave the counseling session feeling battered. It was the attack of the New Guinean counselor. I exposed myself and pleaded for help. She speared right through my bullshit, Held up a mirror and said “you are a control freak; you attract damaged people to boost your own self esteem.” I am bruised and she is right.
I tell myself again and again that I am fine. That I am OK. That I only look for a relationship cos I had my individuality squeezed out by my mother. I tell myself that I am happy just on my own.
I ring my Mum; she had been talking to my friend Deborah. She tells me Daniel Dick, the jailbird who gave me first shot of heroin has died. He had a drug-related stroke.
That was it. He was gone. Daniel who was on my school bus, Daniel who talked about getting blowjobs in jail and told me 'still liked pussy'. He was a hippie come criminal come lost fucking soul.
I think back to the time he told me about 'The Secret'. How he told me that anything was possible with a bit of positive thinking. Now Daniel Dick is gone. Daniel Dick died from heroin.
I try to put Kelvin out of my mind, I can't. I try to affirm myself; I try to talk myself out it. I try to call on the superpowers of Zyprexa.
“Its only lust, its only lust, its only lust”
I can never touch drugs again, but it's hard to convince yourself to stop feeling stuff for people.
More classes. We talk about boundaries and intimacy. Shirley again reiterates that I have some serious issues around control.
We have to write a pretend ad for the partner we always seem to attract. I read mine out.
"Insecure, needy control freak seeking less intelligent, pretentious, drug addict for unfulfilling relationship. Please use me for money, while I use u for sex. Drug dealers or prostitutes preferred but not essential. And by the way, it's your fault that shit goes wrong in my life".
After class I make more lists; physical boundary violations in my life, sexual boundary violations, social boundary violations, emotional boundary violations, psychological boundary violations and spiritual boundary violations. Basically it helped me map out all the bad shit that had happened to me in life. I start to feel like a cross between a new age guru and a basketball ref, but it feels good. I write what I'd had in my intimate relationships and what I hoped for in the future. I show Shirley, she told me “there's no point in wanting someone who doesn’t worship material and beauty, when you worship that yourself”.
I sit outside as the day cools down. The Magpies fly in for their afternoon food, the roosters come over for their share as well. Someone has stuck a piece of paper on the wall “everyone's journey is different” it flickered in the wind. I am calm and still. I wonder if having a partner is even really necessary – nice, but perhaps not necessary.
Night-time, a new guy named Peter tells me about the illegal brothel he used to run. Jarrod comes over to our villa and starts counting the holes in the fly screen. Sam sings Nirvana songs and I smoke and smoke and smoke until I can hear myself wheeze. I go to meds and take a Zyprexa, a Zoloft and a Prendisolone and go to bed. Another day in the cult of rehab comes to an end.
We have more classes, we learn more about Boundaries. Sam says he enjoyed violating other people's boundaries. He's right. He had turned up the stereo that morning. He came into my room and poked me until I woke up. He saw me gazing into the mirror and told me I needed to do more sit-ups. He sprayed ventolin in my face and again turned on the vacuum at 6am. He farted on my shoulder while I was eating. He is a serious boundary violator.
He keeps going all day. He doesn't shut-up about Japanese Bondage videos so I walk up to him and smash a rotten banana on his head. He chases me around the property cacking himself. I go back to my room and find a rotten banana in my pillow.
“Just remember, Luke, uve set a dangerous precedent” he says
“I'd love nothing more than to be beaten up by a sociopath” I say
“Speaking of which, did u hear what happened to Elizabeth?” he asks
“No”
“She got kicked out”
“Your kidding”
“Renee found an antipsychotic on her floor. Elizabeth had been stashing them after meds so she could sleep all day. Renee called her a fat lazy bitch and then dobbed on her”
Elizabeth is going.
Sam breaks out in the Phenergan song. Those in the know cackle away.
I go to find Elizabeth, I want to say goodbye. The escapism of her actions seems very clear. She stayed awake all night and then took her sleeper in the morning so she didn’t have to partake in everyday life. She was doing what so many nightclub tragics do – she avoiding reality.
I see her walking into the office.
“Hi darling, I'm leaving” she says
“I know, I’m really sorry. I hope ur ok”
She hugged me.
“Good luck, thanks for all your kind words” I say
Sweet little lost Elizabeth is gone.
It's graduation day. Justin my roommate and friend is going. I write a speech. I get up and tell him how much I like him. I tell him how smart he is, how his scantiness has gone, how he can see right thru people and how he can see right thru me. I hug him. I a, going to miss him. He is like me educated, middle-class and insanely self-destructive.
Justin is gone.
I feel his absence. It's like the end of a very short era in rehab. I start to feel that maybe I will be ready to go soon as well
Saturday Night, Jimmy and I sit up discussing Renee's Christian Fundamentalism. He says it makes him angry. I say the worst things in the world come from Fundamentalist thinking.
I don't take my Zyprexa that night. I stay up thinking. I think maybe I am just about ready to go. I think I am just about ready. I have doused my biggest demons; I am ready to live again – with my mental illness and addictions under control. I give myself another 2 weeks in here and I think I will go.
Sunday afternoon and I relax and sleep and go to the gym.
Stan comes back from his leave early. Sam comes back saying he had been to church that day.
We talk about scripture and the Bible. Stan and Sam say they knew they thought the scripture wasn’t to be interpreted as literal truth. Stan and Sam say that they both believed in dinosaurs. Stan and Sam say they think gay people are born gay. I feel narrow minded for thinking all Christians are arseholes.
I go back to my room. I think about, for some strange reason, Easter, and I thought about boundaries. What is in my boundary? I thought. Me, self-love, me, good stuff, me, me, me. I start feeling a strange sensation in my chest. Perhaps it's some epithet of narcissism, but it feels like something else. It feels like I've tapped into some kind of divine energy. I feel a little while light or something glowing out of me. I feel connected with all the living things around me. I think about Jesus Christ. I never got the myth of Jesus, it never made any sense. Now it seems to have kind of clicked. It's like no matter what suffering and hatred we endure in life, we will always rise up because we will always have our essence. We can all rise again cos nothing ever kills our essence.
I can’t fucking believe it. I am sounding like some kind of new age Jesus freak. But it feels right. And it feels like for the first time, maybe I have grasped what it meant to have a soul.
I have a soul. No one can take my soul away.
I am fucking hopeless when it comes to guys. I was smitten from the first time I saw him. Half-Spanish, half-Maltese, 25 with blue eyes, once a drug dealer now a fashion designer.
I met him in a club and went to his house the next day. I was too scared to make a move. He'd been playing on my mind and the Zyprexa couldn't switch him off.
Now I was going to ring him and I am prepared for him to tell me he was 'busy'.
Part of me even hopes I will be rejected. Part of me hopes that I can cope with it and move on.
I call him.
"I am in town tomorrow, do u wanna catch up?"
"Yeah sure, ring me when u get into town"
It's a beautiful day.
Sunday. My day leave arrived. I catch the train into the city. I feel alienated and strange as I walked around Brisbane's CBD. I see young boys and girls in black sitting around shop fronts with their big fancy well decorated facades. I am out of the loop. I feel like an Amish person on a day trip into the real world. A few weeks ago I was walking around the city with my facade. Now the persona is gone. I've been stripped and I feel ripped red fucking raw. It seems a bit like the ghost of the old me floating about the city and now I don't know where I fitted anymore now that I'd died. I feel invisible, spooky and lost in limbo. I catch the face of my corpse in the mirror at a bookshop. I hate it. Corpses have wrinkles. I have wrinkles. I go and have a haircut. I walk to Kelvin's house convinced that he doesn't like me like I like him and I hate being humiliated like this.
I knock of Kelvin's door. He let's me in. We drink tea and eat muffins. He shows me photos of him in the society pages of the Courier Mail. He is astonishingly beautiful. He talks about being a drug dealer. He puts on a big act. He looks at me really closed up. He tells me I should stay the full 12 weeks in rehab. His socialite friend turns up. She shows me the blisters on her lips from smoking a meth pipe. It makes me felt sick.
I leave and I kiss him on the cheek and I feel totally dejected.
It's time to go back to rehab. I am worried that I'm becoming institutionalised. I am worried because at the moment I want nothing more than to go back to the beautiful cult of rehab. I want the rules, the structure. I want to be told off for not making my bed and I want the therapy.
I want clear boundaries again.
I go back to rehab and its feelings check time again, I tell everyone I spent the day hanging out with a pretentious wanker and a stupid bitch with meth sores on her mouth.
Everyone claps.
I tell Justin about my day and showed him the picture of my 'new friends' in the paper. I tell him my day was shit. I don't tell him exactly why. I just say the people were pretentious and that they bragged about drug use.
Justin tears out the picture on the paper and blows his nose on it. I like Justin. But I don't tell him I am really upset cos I am scared Kelvin didn’t really like me the same way I like him.
Its day one, week six and the second week of my transformation phase. We map our family history, we draw a family tree and color it in with highlighters where people had substance abuse or had a mental illness. Nearly every male on dad's side of the family had a mental illness. I have three uncles with schizophrenia, an alcoholic grandfather, a grandfather who killed himself, two parents on anti depressants, and basically generation upon generation of mentally ill white thrash. It was strangely empowering to blame your genes for shit going on in life.
We also include pets in the family tree.
Sam talks about his pets.
“I have had seven pets die from neglect or abuse,” he says.
“How?” asks Shirley.
“I forget to feed them or I did experiments on them”.
“Experiments?”
“Yeah, once when I was 14, I buried a cat in a box and it died.”
“Why?”
“Someone told me a cat could survive that”.
“Why didn’t you just ring Doctor Karl you sick bastard,” I ask.
Sam starts laughing.
At the end of class, I meet with Shirley. It's therapy session number 7. I was jumping out of my skin to tell her what happened on the weekend. I don’t want to lie to her. I cut right to the chase.
“I am scared of being rejected,” I tell her.
We talk for an hour. I tell her about my sex life. She tells me I was a predator. I tell her about my taste in guys. She tells me I am controlling. I tell her about my insecurities about the way I look. She tells me not to worry cos I am 'da bomb'. I tell her I like pretty young boys hanging off me. She tells me I was like a heterosexual man who had bimbos hanging off him. She says “you are like, look everyone, this is my bitch, I own him.”
She tells me I treat men like objects. She tells me it’s sad that I need so much validation. I ask her why she thinks I am controlling. She said, “Luke, you act like a predator searching for prey. I suspect it's because you have been abused and I suspect it's because your mother is controlling. Control is Ur understanding of love in a relationship. Wanting control someone else is really about Ur own insecurities”
I leave the counseling session feeling battered. It was the attack of the New Guinean counselor. I exposed myself and pleaded for help. She speared right through my bullshit, Held up a mirror and said “you are a control freak; you attract damaged people to boost your own self esteem.” I am bruised and she is right.
I tell myself again and again that I am fine. That I am OK. That I only look for a relationship cos I had my individuality squeezed out by my mother. I tell myself that I am happy just on my own.
I ring my Mum; she had been talking to my friend Deborah. She tells me Daniel Dick, the jailbird who gave me first shot of heroin has died. He had a drug-related stroke.
That was it. He was gone. Daniel who was on my school bus, Daniel who talked about getting blowjobs in jail and told me 'still liked pussy'. He was a hippie come criminal come lost fucking soul.
I think back to the time he told me about 'The Secret'. How he told me that anything was possible with a bit of positive thinking. Now Daniel Dick is gone. Daniel Dick died from heroin.
I try to put Kelvin out of my mind, I can't. I try to affirm myself; I try to talk myself out it. I try to call on the superpowers of Zyprexa.
“Its only lust, its only lust, its only lust”
I can never touch drugs again, but it's hard to convince yourself to stop feeling stuff for people.
More classes. We talk about boundaries and intimacy. Shirley again reiterates that I have some serious issues around control.
We have to write a pretend ad for the partner we always seem to attract. I read mine out.
"Insecure, needy control freak seeking less intelligent, pretentious, drug addict for unfulfilling relationship. Please use me for money, while I use u for sex. Drug dealers or prostitutes preferred but not essential. And by the way, it's your fault that shit goes wrong in my life".
After class I make more lists; physical boundary violations in my life, sexual boundary violations, social boundary violations, emotional boundary violations, psychological boundary violations and spiritual boundary violations. Basically it helped me map out all the bad shit that had happened to me in life. I start to feel like a cross between a new age guru and a basketball ref, but it feels good. I write what I'd had in my intimate relationships and what I hoped for in the future. I show Shirley, she told me “there's no point in wanting someone who doesn’t worship material and beauty, when you worship that yourself”.
I sit outside as the day cools down. The Magpies fly in for their afternoon food, the roosters come over for their share as well. Someone has stuck a piece of paper on the wall “everyone's journey is different” it flickered in the wind. I am calm and still. I wonder if having a partner is even really necessary – nice, but perhaps not necessary.
Night-time, a new guy named Peter tells me about the illegal brothel he used to run. Jarrod comes over to our villa and starts counting the holes in the fly screen. Sam sings Nirvana songs and I smoke and smoke and smoke until I can hear myself wheeze. I go to meds and take a Zyprexa, a Zoloft and a Prendisolone and go to bed. Another day in the cult of rehab comes to an end.
We have more classes, we learn more about Boundaries. Sam says he enjoyed violating other people's boundaries. He's right. He had turned up the stereo that morning. He came into my room and poked me until I woke up. He saw me gazing into the mirror and told me I needed to do more sit-ups. He sprayed ventolin in my face and again turned on the vacuum at 6am. He farted on my shoulder while I was eating. He is a serious boundary violator.
He keeps going all day. He doesn't shut-up about Japanese Bondage videos so I walk up to him and smash a rotten banana on his head. He chases me around the property cacking himself. I go back to my room and find a rotten banana in my pillow.
“Just remember, Luke, uve set a dangerous precedent” he says
“I'd love nothing more than to be beaten up by a sociopath” I say
“Speaking of which, did u hear what happened to Elizabeth?” he asks
“No”
“She got kicked out”
“Your kidding”
“Renee found an antipsychotic on her floor. Elizabeth had been stashing them after meds so she could sleep all day. Renee called her a fat lazy bitch and then dobbed on her”
Elizabeth is going.
Sam breaks out in the Phenergan song. Those in the know cackle away.
I go to find Elizabeth, I want to say goodbye. The escapism of her actions seems very clear. She stayed awake all night and then took her sleeper in the morning so she didn’t have to partake in everyday life. She was doing what so many nightclub tragics do – she avoiding reality.
I see her walking into the office.
“Hi darling, I'm leaving” she says
“I know, I’m really sorry. I hope ur ok”
She hugged me.
“Good luck, thanks for all your kind words” I say
Sweet little lost Elizabeth is gone.
It's graduation day. Justin my roommate and friend is going. I write a speech. I get up and tell him how much I like him. I tell him how smart he is, how his scantiness has gone, how he can see right thru people and how he can see right thru me. I hug him. I a, going to miss him. He is like me educated, middle-class and insanely self-destructive.
Justin is gone.
I feel his absence. It's like the end of a very short era in rehab. I start to feel that maybe I will be ready to go soon as well
Saturday Night, Jimmy and I sit up discussing Renee's Christian Fundamentalism. He says it makes him angry. I say the worst things in the world come from Fundamentalist thinking.
I don't take my Zyprexa that night. I stay up thinking. I think maybe I am just about ready to go. I think I am just about ready. I have doused my biggest demons; I am ready to live again – with my mental illness and addictions under control. I give myself another 2 weeks in here and I think I will go.
Sunday afternoon and I relax and sleep and go to the gym.
Stan comes back from his leave early. Sam comes back saying he had been to church that day.
We talk about scripture and the Bible. Stan and Sam say they knew they thought the scripture wasn’t to be interpreted as literal truth. Stan and Sam say that they both believed in dinosaurs. Stan and Sam say they think gay people are born gay. I feel narrow minded for thinking all Christians are arseholes.
I go back to my room. I think about, for some strange reason, Easter, and I thought about boundaries. What is in my boundary? I thought. Me, self-love, me, good stuff, me, me, me. I start feeling a strange sensation in my chest. Perhaps it's some epithet of narcissism, but it feels like something else. It feels like I've tapped into some kind of divine energy. I feel a little while light or something glowing out of me. I feel connected with all the living things around me. I think about Jesus Christ. I never got the myth of Jesus, it never made any sense. Now it seems to have kind of clicked. It's like no matter what suffering and hatred we endure in life, we will always rise up because we will always have our essence. We can all rise again cos nothing ever kills our essence.
I can’t fucking believe it. I am sounding like some kind of new age Jesus freak. But it feels right. And it feels like for the first time, maybe I have grasped what it meant to have a soul.
I have a soul. No one can take my soul away.
Chapter 14 - Dead Dogs
Feelings check. People are happy.
“I’m great”
“I'm grateful”
“I'd like to thank Christy for the pudding”
Everyone claps.
Stan's turn. There's tension. Who would cop another beautifully delivered line from his holy book of swear words? I have a terrible feeling I was going to learn a few swear words or at least a new configuration of swear words before his was finished.
“Today” he says “All my efforts to recover and get better were ignored. I feel emotionally oppressed. I feel abandoned. I feel like I did when I was abandoned by my parents as a little boy in the bush. I'm leaving Logan House, goodbye”
I go back to the villa and Stan sits on a chair fidgeting. Ned Flanders is still waiting for the Khmer Rouge. I sit next to him.
"How ya feeling, Stanley?" I ask
“I'm going to tell Mummy on you” he said
“Why is that?'
“Cause I heard that ur going to be a heterosexual”
“Oh Michael, I think ur trying to be funny which is a good thing”
“yeah well, either way, I'm getting out of this fucking shithole”
“Michael u dont always feel like this, and u cooked a good cake today”
“It would have been nice if u hadn’t fucked up the icing”
“I did fuck up the icing Michael and I apologise. Why dont I go and get it out of the fridge and we'll eat the rest of it”
I go and grab it and we sit and we eat it mostly in silence. Occasionally, he looks up at me and says “U really fucked up the icing”
It was Ned on Crack versus Luke on Zyprexa and for some reason his outbursts just didn’t bother me.
Stan turns to me and says “I think I'm going to stay, even if it is a shithole, I am going to stay”.
"Well that was unexpected, but I that is good news for u I think Stan".
Meanwhile, Sam has started showing signs of his sociopathic personality disorder. This morning, he turned on the vacuum cleaner at 6am. The girls put in a complaint.
Sociopaths have no real capacity for empathy. They favor gratification over empathy. Sam wanted attention so he acted in an impulsive and selfish way to get it. I like him, but I was annoyed at being woken up so early. I ask him why.
“it was going to be seven o'clock soon”
“We dont have to get up early on weekends Sam and now I'm going to be tired all day”
“Yeah well, Ive been up since 5” he says walking off laughing
“Well who am I to argue with some remarkable reasoning power?'' I say, feeling annoyed for the first since I started taking the Zyprexa. I think my Zyprexa force field is being gradually ground down by the madness of this place.
Saturday morning and again Stan isn't well. He calls me a cunt for not mopping the floor. He walks around the villa calling out 'cunt' again and again.
Zyprexa.
I start to think that maybe Michael needs psychiatric care. I go to the Dick Smith counselor and suggest to him that perhaps psych services and not rehab (with its under qualified staff) would be the best way to go for Stan. I tell the counselor about his swearing and abuse. Dick Smith says
“Uve got enough smarts to realise the kind of headspace Stan is in. Everyone here is at a different stage of their recovery. Use this as a lesson in tolerance. If people do bad stuff to you on the outside then its the same thing – dont take it on board”
“Stan is our problem. He is getting progressively worse, he needs psychiatric help”
“Give him time, Luke”
I walk off. I mow the lawns. I hope I was genuinely worried about Stan and not trying to get him kicked out. I think if it was going to be honest, I was probably trying to do a bit of both.
At lunch Dick Smith presents Stan with a cake for getting thru to the next phase of rehab.
Stan seems happy with that. He stops swearing.
“I'm glad your staying” I say to him while secretly thinking if they dont take him to a psych ward please take to the dentist and do something about those 18th century convict teeth
Saturday night and I decide to take a chance and not take my Zyprexa. I am awake until 6am again. I get up in the middle of the night. I throw mushrooms all over the kitchen and throw bread on the floor. I am angry at having to put up with everyone else's insanity when I am trying to sort out my own shit.
I am angry and miss my Zyprexa. I decide not to miss another Zyprexa again.
Boring Sunday and people get angry with Mel once again. Apparently she dobbed Richard in for something or another.
She was once again the topic of conversation, anything to stop us from talking about our own problems I suppose.
Renee said Mel was constantly “having a pity party”
Sam, Renee and I came up with an idea of holding our pity party – bored – bored rehab style – we came up with a guest list, party games and party list for the rehab pity party.
PARTY GAMES
Pass the blame
Apathy in the dark
Poison Gossip
Self-Mutilate off
Spin the Bullshit
Come dressed as someone who abused u
How's ur depression Mel? (what’s the time Mr. wolf?)
PARTY CLOWN TRICKS
Confuse people about ur gender
Pull an irrelevant remark out of the hat
Much melodramatic fake emotions disappear and reappear like magic
Make the smell of piss appear from nowhere
PARTY BAG
Rope
Blunt Knife
A piece of shit
Lollies
A used condom
A vibrating anus
A drunk, incompetent hairdresser
Hair gel
Piss
PARTY FOOD
Poo on a stick
Sour grapes
Grog vomit
Lemons
Hot Dogs
Used nappies
Rohypnol
Sour cream
It's cruel, but its also because Mel is a genuine pain in the arse. And yes, once again she was the reliable scapegoat.
Stan overhears our conversation and assumes it was about him.
“I can hear you talking about me sometimes' he says.
I shake my head and walk off. Enough of the insanity already.
I graduate from phase one of the program “The Awareness Phase”. I am now in “Transformation Phase”. Apparently this is the phase when u get into the deep underlying issues behind substance abuse. I am looking forward to it. I knew the bullying wasn't everything. I knew there was still stuff that happened in my life that I hadn't deal with. I knew if I had drugs in front of me I would probably still take them.
In the first Transformation class we talk about role models and then anger and aggression. We talk about anger as something that can be a good thing if expressed properly. If its expressed badly it can turn into rage and violence. If not expressed at all people, as in like addicts, will turn the anger on themselves – like abusing substances and self-harming.
Christy looks perplexed by the link “My daughter self-harms. She has been cutting herself for years. I thought she'd stopped, but actually she has just been cutting her legs instead”
I go up to Leanne after class and ask about her daughter. I give her the cult spin on it all. I tell her self-harming is a maladaptive way of dealing with anxiety and that her daughter could learn better coping mechanisms than that.
Christy hugged me with a nice non-Mel like hug and tells me she wants me to meet her daughter.
It's a little overwhelming. I don't want to be a gay role model to her fucked-up self-harming lesbian daughter.
New day and more classes. We learn more about aggression and violence. The counselor talks about the anger-guilt-depression cycle.
Jason the BB talks about beating the shit out of three guys with a chair.
“I can see how anger leads to depression” I say to the class “I dont want to fight so I flight and I hibernate, but guilt I’m not really sure about”
I'm asking cause I know my mother was over-possessive and without a doubt I would have had a bit of a guilt complex. But how would guilt lead to depression, self-harm and drug use? I am intrigued and a bit scared to find out all at the same time.
Another night in the meds room. I sit with Christy and Sam.
“Today's class was interesting” I say “Confronting though”
“Yeah” Sam says he's eyes lighting up like a sociopath in an electric chair “The guilt stuff made me think about all the awful stuff I'd done....I've done some terrible shit, man, Ive near on fucking well murdered people”
“Really? But ur such a nice sociopath Sam”
“Yeah well there was this one guy who owed me thousands of dollars when I was a drug dealer. So we kidnapped him and tied him up. We beat the shit out of him, I cut the bottom of his feet open with a knife so he couldn’t walk and then dropped him off in the middle of nowhere”
“My word Sam uve got it all worked out, haven’t u?”
He laughs.
“A couple of months later it was playing on my mind when I was acid and I wanted to know what it would have felt for him. So I tattooed the bottom of my feet” He showed me random squiggly lines on his feet
He laughs again.
Christy sits with her customary rye, frustrated, tired grin. He her hands are crossed over her big stomach. While Sam's story had shocked me, Christy was almost bored by it -she had seen it all before.
“How ya going Christy?” I say patting her leg.
“I had to go to court today, I had my kids taken off me a couple of years ago”
“Why?”
“I befriended this girl in prison. I never usually let people stay at my house but when we both go out she needed somewhere to stay so I let her stay. We took speed together one night and she gave me a hotshot”
“What’s a hotshot?”
“A hot shot is a shot in a needle with battery acid in it. Do u understand....she was trying to kill me. I took the shot, I didn’t know, I was knocked unconscious and got taken off in an ambulance. When I got back from hospital child protection were there and they had taken my kids. So I got out my gun, pointed it to my head and very politely asked them to give me my kids”
“No offence Leanne, but if u wanted to get ur kids back that’s really bad PR”
Leanne starts giggling.
“Its like look at me Mr. Child Protection I’m so good to my kids that I'd shoot u for them” I add
“Yeah well darl I did get my kids back 3 days later and now they have offered to wave the charges in exchange for information. I told them to get fucked”
Christy stared out into the distance, lips pursed, looking tired from seeing the shit-side of life.
I get called into the meds room. It's Zyprexa time. It's time to give my brain a rest.
Going through Transformation I try extra hard to get well. I am a bit pumped to go back to work and I don't just want to be a functional again, I want to be better than I had ever been before. Instead of sitting up at night making of fun people I start writing lists. I write lists about things I am angry about, lists on positive ways to express anger, lists on causes of my low self-esteem, reasons why I may fear rejection, things Ive achieved, people I love, qualities I look for in people, things I'm scared of, things I love about myself and goals for the future.
I fully subscribe to the cult of rehab. I want to be healed by the messiah – psychobabble. I feel like I am losing any affinity with the real world. I don't care if I was out of the loop – the cult of me matters the most. I am happy to be brainwashed by rehab buzz words 'caregiver', self-affirmation', 'thought stopping' – I have fresh new neural pathways and I am loving it.
In some ways though it doesn't seem enough, was it a way of resolving things just to name something? I won't really know until I tested it out in the real world. And were these things really my issues or was I just submitting to my counselor’s point-of-view?
I have my first phone call I ring my Mum.
She asks me how rehab is going. She tells me she’s worried about Dad.
"I know""He's a mess. He lays in bed all day""He's depressed Luke. There is nothing I can do about it" she says "when u were back in Melbourne he started acting a bit strange""That's not like Dad" I adds sarcastically."I worry about that man sometimes. I wish he'd get rid of that gun"She takes a deep breath."The other day he nabbed by a copper in Gin Gin for not having his seatbelt on. He was so angry he said he was going to go down to the station, ask for the officer and then shoot him right in the face""Jesus Mum. Do u really think he would do that though?""Um. I dont know. He gets so irrational I think he could do just about anything. He gets so caught up in his bullshit, he doesnt seem to. To, um, care about the consequences""mmmm. God""And I’ll tell u something, please dont repeat this. Not even to Tanya. One day he went for a walk. I noticed his gun was missing. He was in a weird mood when he left. Y'know all doom and gloom - the whole world is terrible. He was missing for 3 hours. I thought, yep, he's finally done it. He's gone to shoot himself in the bush""Let me guess. He's still alive" I add being a smart arse."Your horrible Luke. He came back in a really happy mood. Happy as Larry. I asked him why he took the gun and he said he didnt know""Maybe he was looking for those wild dogs that keep attacking livestock.""mmmm. maybe. I think that his most likely cause of death is suicide. He gets so bloody irrational""Oh did I tell u the girl who lives around the corner, Mary, her horse got mauled by feral dogs the other day. The poor thing ran straight into a barbed-wire fence. When they found the horse she was on the ground. She lost so much blood she nearly died""Poor thing, is she ok?""Yeah, we think so"
Jarrod comes up to me as I am on the phone.
“The radio keeps attacking me”
“What?”
“The radio keeps attacking me, the radio is yelling at me”
“Hey Mum, I better go, Jarrod seems to be having an episode”
Before I have a chance to say anything to Jarrod he walks off.
I ring a friend from work, I tell her how much better I feel. She doesn't really say much. She sounded even, cynical. It makes me feel awful. I ring a counselor after-hours and tell how shit it made me feel. She tells me I am looking for validation and needed to find it within myself. I need unconditional self-acceptance she says. I say I often looked for reasons to jeopardise my success.
“Why do u think u might do that” she asked me
“I'm not sure”
I think about the guilt-anger-depression cycle.
“Um I think it might be because of my Mum”
“Ah-ha”
“I think that I felt guilty for being independent and for being separate to her. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah”
“And that maybe I was never encouraged to have a separate identity to my mother and so anything I did was adult brought a lot of guilt”
I can't believe the rehab speak that was coming out of my mouth.
“I never got validation growing up for being successful because I think maybe my mother took it unconsciously as a rejection of our relationship”
“What about ur father?”
“My Dad has had severe depression all his life, so I don't blame, but he never, um, showed much interest. He didn’t know how to be a Dad. And my Mum came from an alcoholic home, so I think perhaps I was the unconditional love she never had and she was scared of losing it”
“It sounds like ur working this out for urself Luke, my advice at this point would be – listen to yourself. Don't go looking to other people for approval – believe in urself”
And yes she is right, and yes it feels amazing. I fitted in the missing link in the Guilt-Anger-Depression cycle. I am an angry person because I always felt too guilty to express myself for fear of hurting other people. The anger built-up inside until I turned it on myself thru self-harm and substance abuse. Bingo. Rehab Bingo. Legs 11. Jackpot. Hooray!
I tell myself that my success is ok, my success doesn’t jeopardise anyone else's, I know if I am violated by someone I am entitled to them its not my problem how that makes them feel – but I can do it nicely. Anger is a good thing, it protects me. I need to use it in the right way, to stop me from getting hurt and unjustly treated – I promised never to turn my anger on myself ever again.
“I’m great”
“I'm grateful”
“I'd like to thank Christy for the pudding”
Everyone claps.
Stan's turn. There's tension. Who would cop another beautifully delivered line from his holy book of swear words? I have a terrible feeling I was going to learn a few swear words or at least a new configuration of swear words before his was finished.
“Today” he says “All my efforts to recover and get better were ignored. I feel emotionally oppressed. I feel abandoned. I feel like I did when I was abandoned by my parents as a little boy in the bush. I'm leaving Logan House, goodbye”
I go back to the villa and Stan sits on a chair fidgeting. Ned Flanders is still waiting for the Khmer Rouge. I sit next to him.
"How ya feeling, Stanley?" I ask
“I'm going to tell Mummy on you” he said
“Why is that?'
“Cause I heard that ur going to be a heterosexual”
“Oh Michael, I think ur trying to be funny which is a good thing”
“yeah well, either way, I'm getting out of this fucking shithole”
“Michael u dont always feel like this, and u cooked a good cake today”
“It would have been nice if u hadn’t fucked up the icing”
“I did fuck up the icing Michael and I apologise. Why dont I go and get it out of the fridge and we'll eat the rest of it”
I go and grab it and we sit and we eat it mostly in silence. Occasionally, he looks up at me and says “U really fucked up the icing”
It was Ned on Crack versus Luke on Zyprexa and for some reason his outbursts just didn’t bother me.
Stan turns to me and says “I think I'm going to stay, even if it is a shithole, I am going to stay”.
"Well that was unexpected, but I that is good news for u I think Stan".
Meanwhile, Sam has started showing signs of his sociopathic personality disorder. This morning, he turned on the vacuum cleaner at 6am. The girls put in a complaint.
Sociopaths have no real capacity for empathy. They favor gratification over empathy. Sam wanted attention so he acted in an impulsive and selfish way to get it. I like him, but I was annoyed at being woken up so early. I ask him why.
“it was going to be seven o'clock soon”
“We dont have to get up early on weekends Sam and now I'm going to be tired all day”
“Yeah well, Ive been up since 5” he says walking off laughing
“Well who am I to argue with some remarkable reasoning power?'' I say, feeling annoyed for the first since I started taking the Zyprexa. I think my Zyprexa force field is being gradually ground down by the madness of this place.
Saturday morning and again Stan isn't well. He calls me a cunt for not mopping the floor. He walks around the villa calling out 'cunt' again and again.
Zyprexa.
I start to think that maybe Michael needs psychiatric care. I go to the Dick Smith counselor and suggest to him that perhaps psych services and not rehab (with its under qualified staff) would be the best way to go for Stan. I tell the counselor about his swearing and abuse. Dick Smith says
“Uve got enough smarts to realise the kind of headspace Stan is in. Everyone here is at a different stage of their recovery. Use this as a lesson in tolerance. If people do bad stuff to you on the outside then its the same thing – dont take it on board”
“Stan is our problem. He is getting progressively worse, he needs psychiatric help”
“Give him time, Luke”
I walk off. I mow the lawns. I hope I was genuinely worried about Stan and not trying to get him kicked out. I think if it was going to be honest, I was probably trying to do a bit of both.
At lunch Dick Smith presents Stan with a cake for getting thru to the next phase of rehab.
Stan seems happy with that. He stops swearing.
“I'm glad your staying” I say to him while secretly thinking if they dont take him to a psych ward please take to the dentist and do something about those 18th century convict teeth
Saturday night and I decide to take a chance and not take my Zyprexa. I am awake until 6am again. I get up in the middle of the night. I throw mushrooms all over the kitchen and throw bread on the floor. I am angry at having to put up with everyone else's insanity when I am trying to sort out my own shit.
I am angry and miss my Zyprexa. I decide not to miss another Zyprexa again.
Boring Sunday and people get angry with Mel once again. Apparently she dobbed Richard in for something or another.
She was once again the topic of conversation, anything to stop us from talking about our own problems I suppose.
Renee said Mel was constantly “having a pity party”
Sam, Renee and I came up with an idea of holding our pity party – bored – bored rehab style – we came up with a guest list, party games and party list for the rehab pity party.
PARTY GAMES
Pass the blame
Apathy in the dark
Poison Gossip
Self-Mutilate off
Spin the Bullshit
Come dressed as someone who abused u
How's ur depression Mel? (what’s the time Mr. wolf?)
PARTY CLOWN TRICKS
Confuse people about ur gender
Pull an irrelevant remark out of the hat
Much melodramatic fake emotions disappear and reappear like magic
Make the smell of piss appear from nowhere
PARTY BAG
Rope
Blunt Knife
A piece of shit
Lollies
A used condom
A vibrating anus
A drunk, incompetent hairdresser
Hair gel
Piss
PARTY FOOD
Poo on a stick
Sour grapes
Grog vomit
Lemons
Hot Dogs
Used nappies
Rohypnol
Sour cream
It's cruel, but its also because Mel is a genuine pain in the arse. And yes, once again she was the reliable scapegoat.
Stan overhears our conversation and assumes it was about him.
“I can hear you talking about me sometimes' he says.
I shake my head and walk off. Enough of the insanity already.
I graduate from phase one of the program “The Awareness Phase”. I am now in “Transformation Phase”. Apparently this is the phase when u get into the deep underlying issues behind substance abuse. I am looking forward to it. I knew the bullying wasn't everything. I knew there was still stuff that happened in my life that I hadn't deal with. I knew if I had drugs in front of me I would probably still take them.
In the first Transformation class we talk about role models and then anger and aggression. We talk about anger as something that can be a good thing if expressed properly. If its expressed badly it can turn into rage and violence. If not expressed at all people, as in like addicts, will turn the anger on themselves – like abusing substances and self-harming.
Christy looks perplexed by the link “My daughter self-harms. She has been cutting herself for years. I thought she'd stopped, but actually she has just been cutting her legs instead”
I go up to Leanne after class and ask about her daughter. I give her the cult spin on it all. I tell her self-harming is a maladaptive way of dealing with anxiety and that her daughter could learn better coping mechanisms than that.
Christy hugged me with a nice non-Mel like hug and tells me she wants me to meet her daughter.
It's a little overwhelming. I don't want to be a gay role model to her fucked-up self-harming lesbian daughter.
New day and more classes. We learn more about aggression and violence. The counselor talks about the anger-guilt-depression cycle.
Jason the BB talks about beating the shit out of three guys with a chair.
“I can see how anger leads to depression” I say to the class “I dont want to fight so I flight and I hibernate, but guilt I’m not really sure about”
I'm asking cause I know my mother was over-possessive and without a doubt I would have had a bit of a guilt complex. But how would guilt lead to depression, self-harm and drug use? I am intrigued and a bit scared to find out all at the same time.
Another night in the meds room. I sit with Christy and Sam.
“Today's class was interesting” I say “Confronting though”
“Yeah” Sam says he's eyes lighting up like a sociopath in an electric chair “The guilt stuff made me think about all the awful stuff I'd done....I've done some terrible shit, man, Ive near on fucking well murdered people”
“Really? But ur such a nice sociopath Sam”
“Yeah well there was this one guy who owed me thousands of dollars when I was a drug dealer. So we kidnapped him and tied him up. We beat the shit out of him, I cut the bottom of his feet open with a knife so he couldn’t walk and then dropped him off in the middle of nowhere”
“My word Sam uve got it all worked out, haven’t u?”
He laughs.
“A couple of months later it was playing on my mind when I was acid and I wanted to know what it would have felt for him. So I tattooed the bottom of my feet” He showed me random squiggly lines on his feet
He laughs again.
Christy sits with her customary rye, frustrated, tired grin. He her hands are crossed over her big stomach. While Sam's story had shocked me, Christy was almost bored by it -she had seen it all before.
“How ya going Christy?” I say patting her leg.
“I had to go to court today, I had my kids taken off me a couple of years ago”
“Why?”
“I befriended this girl in prison. I never usually let people stay at my house but when we both go out she needed somewhere to stay so I let her stay. We took speed together one night and she gave me a hotshot”
“What’s a hotshot?”
“A hot shot is a shot in a needle with battery acid in it. Do u understand....she was trying to kill me. I took the shot, I didn’t know, I was knocked unconscious and got taken off in an ambulance. When I got back from hospital child protection were there and they had taken my kids. So I got out my gun, pointed it to my head and very politely asked them to give me my kids”
“No offence Leanne, but if u wanted to get ur kids back that’s really bad PR”
Leanne starts giggling.
“Its like look at me Mr. Child Protection I’m so good to my kids that I'd shoot u for them” I add
“Yeah well darl I did get my kids back 3 days later and now they have offered to wave the charges in exchange for information. I told them to get fucked”
Christy stared out into the distance, lips pursed, looking tired from seeing the shit-side of life.
I get called into the meds room. It's Zyprexa time. It's time to give my brain a rest.
Going through Transformation I try extra hard to get well. I am a bit pumped to go back to work and I don't just want to be a functional again, I want to be better than I had ever been before. Instead of sitting up at night making of fun people I start writing lists. I write lists about things I am angry about, lists on positive ways to express anger, lists on causes of my low self-esteem, reasons why I may fear rejection, things Ive achieved, people I love, qualities I look for in people, things I'm scared of, things I love about myself and goals for the future.
I fully subscribe to the cult of rehab. I want to be healed by the messiah – psychobabble. I feel like I am losing any affinity with the real world. I don't care if I was out of the loop – the cult of me matters the most. I am happy to be brainwashed by rehab buzz words 'caregiver', self-affirmation', 'thought stopping' – I have fresh new neural pathways and I am loving it.
In some ways though it doesn't seem enough, was it a way of resolving things just to name something? I won't really know until I tested it out in the real world. And were these things really my issues or was I just submitting to my counselor’s point-of-view?
I have my first phone call I ring my Mum.
She asks me how rehab is going. She tells me she’s worried about Dad.
"I know""He's a mess. He lays in bed all day""He's depressed Luke. There is nothing I can do about it" she says "when u were back in Melbourne he started acting a bit strange""That's not like Dad" I adds sarcastically."I worry about that man sometimes. I wish he'd get rid of that gun"She takes a deep breath."The other day he nabbed by a copper in Gin Gin for not having his seatbelt on. He was so angry he said he was going to go down to the station, ask for the officer and then shoot him right in the face""Jesus Mum. Do u really think he would do that though?""Um. I dont know. He gets so irrational I think he could do just about anything. He gets so caught up in his bullshit, he doesnt seem to. To, um, care about the consequences""mmmm. God""And I’ll tell u something, please dont repeat this. Not even to Tanya. One day he went for a walk. I noticed his gun was missing. He was in a weird mood when he left. Y'know all doom and gloom - the whole world is terrible. He was missing for 3 hours. I thought, yep, he's finally done it. He's gone to shoot himself in the bush""Let me guess. He's still alive" I add being a smart arse."Your horrible Luke. He came back in a really happy mood. Happy as Larry. I asked him why he took the gun and he said he didnt know""Maybe he was looking for those wild dogs that keep attacking livestock.""mmmm. maybe. I think that his most likely cause of death is suicide. He gets so bloody irrational""Oh did I tell u the girl who lives around the corner, Mary, her horse got mauled by feral dogs the other day. The poor thing ran straight into a barbed-wire fence. When they found the horse she was on the ground. She lost so much blood she nearly died""Poor thing, is she ok?""Yeah, we think so"
Jarrod comes up to me as I am on the phone.
“The radio keeps attacking me”
“What?”
“The radio keeps attacking me, the radio is yelling at me”
“Hey Mum, I better go, Jarrod seems to be having an episode”
Before I have a chance to say anything to Jarrod he walks off.
I ring a friend from work, I tell her how much better I feel. She doesn't really say much. She sounded even, cynical. It makes me feel awful. I ring a counselor after-hours and tell how shit it made me feel. She tells me I am looking for validation and needed to find it within myself. I need unconditional self-acceptance she says. I say I often looked for reasons to jeopardise my success.
“Why do u think u might do that” she asked me
“I'm not sure”
I think about the guilt-anger-depression cycle.
“Um I think it might be because of my Mum”
“Ah-ha”
“I think that I felt guilty for being independent and for being separate to her. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah”
“And that maybe I was never encouraged to have a separate identity to my mother and so anything I did was adult brought a lot of guilt”
I can't believe the rehab speak that was coming out of my mouth.
“I never got validation growing up for being successful because I think maybe my mother took it unconsciously as a rejection of our relationship”
“What about ur father?”
“My Dad has had severe depression all his life, so I don't blame, but he never, um, showed much interest. He didn’t know how to be a Dad. And my Mum came from an alcoholic home, so I think perhaps I was the unconditional love she never had and she was scared of losing it”
“It sounds like ur working this out for urself Luke, my advice at this point would be – listen to yourself. Don't go looking to other people for approval – believe in urself”
And yes she is right, and yes it feels amazing. I fitted in the missing link in the Guilt-Anger-Depression cycle. I am an angry person because I always felt too guilty to express myself for fear of hurting other people. The anger built-up inside until I turned it on myself thru self-harm and substance abuse. Bingo. Rehab Bingo. Legs 11. Jackpot. Hooray!
I tell myself that my success is ok, my success doesn’t jeopardise anyone else's, I know if I am violated by someone I am entitled to them its not my problem how that makes them feel – but I can do it nicely. Anger is a good thing, it protects me. I need to use it in the right way, to stop me from getting hurt and unjustly treated – I promised never to turn my anger on myself ever again.
Chapter 13 - Molest me and I will love thee
I wake up and I feel good. Relaxed. The antipsychotic I'm taking is called Zyprexa. It has a nice ring to it. It's sounds like a cross between a vibrator and robot from Doctor Who.
In class we have to right a little easy about our drug of choice. We have to say what it is and why we took it.
Elizabeth is first and talks about Phenergan. “I spent 6 years in my room. I didn't leave my house, I didn't even go to the mailbox. I took packet after packet of Phenergan. I know a lot of people in psych wards are there because they have attempted to kill themselves because of Phenergan. I know people think that Phenergan is a weak drug, but if you take enough of it, it is strong. I knew a woman who took 90 a day. My husband left me, I have declared myself bankrupt, and Phenergan has ruined my life.”
Everyone goes quiet. Sam shoots me a look. Lee leans over to me and says “Oh my god, she left her husband for Phenergan.”
Margie takes Elizabeth’s lead in self disclosure, “I was sexually abused by my stepfather at 13. I started drinking. I drank and I drank and I drank. I felt ashamed and guilty. Then my sister ran off with my husband and my kids. I can't forgive her. I drink and I drink and I drink and I made a fool out of myself and now I want to stop.”
Lee's turn "When I first smoked Crystal Meth I felt amazing. Ice feels like uve just broken the pain barrier in exercise. U feel euphoric. U feel strong, confident, ur everything u always wanted to be. Then u smoke it all the time and that's all u have in ur life, a crack pipe"
The end of class. Shirley tells everyone Wayne left. He went to a Dentist Appointment and never came back. I suppose he had enough. She says Matt has also left. He has been kicked out for drinking.
Matt is gone and Wayne is gone.
I sleep thru lunch. I wake up feeling calm, happy, and in control.
Control.
Boys, gone switched off. Negative thoughts, gone, switched off. Bad memories, gone, switched off. Other people's opinions, gone, switched off.
Control.
But I have some doubts about Zyprexa as well. Surely a pill can't just stop you from loving things. It was kind of like the most profound of most human experiences could just be switched off. Flick on, flick off. I had my little remote control pill. Is it psychotic to love someone who doesn't love you back? Either way, I have found the switch. I have found the remote and I was happy to use it.
Before class, I have a cigarette with my lungs still wheezing. I sit next to Renee. I gazed into her drug-messed face,
“So Renee, you haven't told me how you ended up graduating from here and then relapsing and having to come back.”
“Well where do I start?” she asks.
“Wherever you like, but we only have 10 minutes before class,” I say.
“Well, my biggest problem is a bit of a cliché. I was the middle child. I was the scapegoat in my family,” she says staring at the ground. “I was first offered acid when I was twelve but I didn't want it. Then when I got into my teenage years, I got miserable. There was lots of violence in my family and I tried to kill myself from pills from my parents' medicine cabinet. I was taken to hospital and you know what really fucking pisses me off, my family was in denial. It was kept a secret. They never talked about it. They just wanted to pretend that we were a happy shiny family. After that, I started using pot, beer, acid and speed. I got pregnant at 15 and was forced to have an abortion. I'd been married twice; both times my partners physically and sexually abused me. I'd always turned to drugs. I'd been fucked over so many times, I lost count.”
I stare deep into Renee's pupils, she stares back. I tried as hard as possible to see right into her. To see how much her being matches her words.
“And now you are back here,” I say.
“Yeah, I am healing, I am getting strong, my kids are away from me and that breaks my heart, but I need to be here. When I get out, I am getting a housing commission house in Caboolture. It is a lovely little townhouse,” she said with her head tilted resting on the back of her hand.
“If you dont mind me asking, how does God and Christianity fits into this for you?” I ask.
“Unconditional love,” she says. “It doesn't matter to God about all the things I do wrong. I know he doesn't like it but he will always love me.”
Renee is quite possibly a neurotic and over sensitive and dogmatic and a religious nutter, but I can't help it but like here. I know we all had our own way of getting through all the bad stuff in life, so who was I to set standards for Rachel?
I smiled at her. She put her arm around me.
“I love you Luke,” she said.
“I love you too,” and I hugged her back "Hey, Renee what was with that outburst at Damien the other day?"
"I think he's creepy, I reckon he's a kiddy fiddler"
"Renee, u don't know that for a fact"
"I just have a feeling"
"Yeah, well I think we should stick to the facts with stuff like that"
"He's a creep Luke"
Night-time and three people from alcoholic anonymous come to talk about their 12 step program. Some of the staff aren't happy about it. AA come from a different philosophical model than the CBT model used at Logan House. AA believes that you are not in control of your addiction; therefore, you need to give yourself over to a higher power. The CBT model says that thoughts control everything and you control your thoughts, so you can control your addiction.
The 3 guests all introduce themselves as “alcoholics”.
The first guy “Tug” looks like an ex-bikie. He has a goatee and tatts. He talks about drinking himself to sleep every night 365 days a year. He talked about his broken marriage and how he now only serves the 'man in the mirror.' He says he has been sober for 6 years.
The second person a woman, talks about her alcoholic father, how she looked after her mother, how she was sexually abused, and how she finally got drunk one night and beat the shit out of her father.
The third person, a nervous little man starts talking and I leave. I don’t need to hear endless stories about people getting drunk. These people were still pretty much alcoholics, all you had to do was to ask them. They looked bad, they dress shabbily. They didn't have much in the way of confidence and talked exclusively about alcohol. Their old identity was as a drinker. Their new identity was as an ex drinker. My purpose in life is being an ex-alcoholic. I no longer drink, therefore I am.
After I walk out, half a dozen people follow. Some were angry, some were bored. Others said, the only thing that the meeting did for them was make them feel like to have a drink again.
I sleep well again and get up go I to the gym. I work hard, again. My 12 week new body program is already starting to show results. The other people who use the gym lots were generally the jailbirds. In drug culture I'd come across enough criminals in my time to know how to along with them. They hate authority and they like dirty jokes – really not all different to me.
One guy Chris who has a handsome chiseled face and some cool tattoos offered to teach me how to box.
“I used to be a competitive boxer” he says “I fought in the state titles.
He kind of reminds me of a guy you'd see in gay porn. Like say some thing called Jail Pain 3, starting Chris.
I'm happy to learn, the next time some bitchy queen told me my haircut was 'O.V.A. Ova' I could just say....knock them out.
I put on the gloves and start wacking away, awkwardly and wimpy at the punching bag.
“No, like this mate” Chris says and pow, pow, pow, he has a fixed look of concentration and the bag goes flying.
He tells me to balance, to turn my wrist as I punch and to keep my head down low- to protect my head.
I like being taught how to fight by a bad arse, but it's exhausting. My little asthmatic body is not strictly speaking built for long distance punch-ons.
"If anybody puts their hands on u. Head butt them, whack them in the balls, elbow them in the face and punch them in the stomach"
"Can't I just say 'don't touch me’?”
"If that doesn't work, then punch the shit out of them"
"By what uve described I could end up hospitalising someone"
"That's the idea"
I sit down to rest, he sits down next to me.
“So ur friend Matt has gone?”
“Yeah, they wanted to kick me out as well. I said I had nothing to do with the stuff Matt did wrong”
“I think people put u in a category cause ur from Jail”
“Yeah, well I didn’t anything wrong”
“If I were u Steve I'd go out of me to defy the stereotype. It's wrong to think that cause uve done time that ur a certain type of person”
“I'm just here to get my shit together”
“How long were u in prison for?”
“8 years, on and off”
I wonder if he's had gay sex.
“What for?"
“Robberies, anything to feed my habit. At my worst, I shot-up $800 worth of smack a day”
I like this guy for some reason. He was bad, but he seemed....honest....honest about being bad or something.
“Come back tomorrow, man” he said “I'll teach some more moves tomorrow”
We walked off together. A staff member saw us and kind of frowned at me. I guess she didn’t want me to be the bitch in the 'plastic gangsters'.
The Zyprexa continues to make me good. I am productive, I am not a zombie, I am sleeping, I read Crime and Punishment and write in my journal like a mad man.
Shirley asks me how I feel about taking anti-psychotics.
“Shirley, I have a long history of Schizophrenia in my family. It doesn’t surprise me that Zyprexa would work on wateva is wrong with my brain. Ive found something that works and now the leprechauns aren't telling me light fires anymore”
“Very funny, Luke, as long as you’re feeling better” she says.
Renee is sitting outside the office when I walk out.
"What's going on?" I ask
“I'm a bit worried Jimmy” she says.
“Why?”
“He's got a lot on his mind. He's just found out his Dad is still alive”
“I know, he told me. That would be hard, especially seeing as though Jimmy has some guilt issues with his own parenting” I say surprised at how much I had taken on the lingo of the cult.
“I know, I'm just worried that I told some stuff about me and now he doesn’t respect me”
“Yeah, what do u tell him?”
“ I told him what a slut Ive been and how I sometimes used to fuck multiple guys in one night”
“Hey trust me, I understand men. He would have of acted all sympathetic to ur face and then quietly went off to wank about it after”
Renee pissed herself laughing
“It's true' I say “Don't personalise his bad mood, Rachel” - again sounding like a rehab counselor “Why do you think u took so many risks sexually anyway?”
“I'm still trying to work that out” She says.
“Well I know Shirley thinks I'm a sex addict, cause I am constantly starring in bisexual orgies. I have done some fairly wrong stuff.
'What made u do all that stuff”
“I guess it was fun and experimentation and, um, I had a sexual experience with my cousin when I was 9 which has kind of set me off”
“That's awful, I hate that shit. Luke, do u think most gay guys have been molested?”
“I dont think so”
“I reckon they would have been”
Excuse me
“Renee, there is no evidence to back up that assertion. In many cases male to male sexual abuse leads to people becoming homophobic”
“Well, Luke I think experiences like that can shape ur sexuality”
“Perhaps in a way, but I believe sexuality – as in which gender ur attracted too comes prior to experience.”
“I disagree completely, it makes sense doesn’t it – that u get molested by a man, so u think that is normal sexual activity”
“Gay sex is not inherently abuse like sexual abuse, Renee. Its two consenting adults and I think unless u showed me a study that indicates a higher number of gay men being molested when they were young then I would not be convinced”
Someone called out to Renee, “Villa meeting” and I am relieved that she is gone.
She had been spinning me the standard fundamentalist line about homosexuality. Of course, how could God create an abomination like two people expressing their deep love for one another? Renee was right, love is a sin. I should address my need to love other people in therapy.
I walk thru the office, someone has written a little note on the whiteboard.
“The more we care about the things outside our control, they more it controls us”
Rachel's warped fundamentalist hippie chick view on the world actually has nothing to with me. I have to let it go.
The Zyprexa continues to make me feel amazing. Fear could be overcome, failure was simply a matter of perception. The world may well be 50% shit, but I will always own the space between my ears. With the onset of Zyprexa I was back in control. 3 days later and I might be the happiest I've ever been. Getting all that shit of my system about high school helped as well. I feel better than I ever did on crystal meth and on heroin. I was enlightened just from swallowing a single pill.
However, I know there is still more shit to work out. I know there are still more demons to confront and to conquer.
It's graduation time again. This time it's James or 'Ginger Nuts' as Sam liked to call him. He's not particularly popular at rehab, but he is respected. During the speeches people say stuff like
“We admire ur resolve”
“Even if people didn’t like u, they respected ur stand on things”
“We like that u didn’t become part of the cool group'
Everyone claps. Nothing really came close to the kind of emotional outpouring that had happened with Polly.
We eat cake after. Stan is odd today. I heard muttering around the cake table 'cunt, cunt, cunt'. His eyes were opened big, his skin was flushed – if u didn’t know any better you'd think he was on his way to being tortured by the Khmer Rouge.
Stan has baked two cakes. Unfortanetly they don't look the best, nobody's eating them. I go and tell half a dozen people outside to go and eat his cake or
“He will have an episode and I'm scared he might target me”
People come in and take some of his cake and then throw it in the bin when he's not looking.
A counselor goes up to him.
“We forgot to give u this certificate Stan” she says
It was his certificate for moving into the next phase of rehab, he was supposed to get it at the graduation.
“Forgot?” he says “Forgot? Well forget this - fuck u”
He picks up the certificate and throws it into the fireplace. Stan at this moment, only understands the Angry God not the God of love and forgiveness.
His face is now a mixture of terror and anger. Just before he walks out of the room he says with impeccable timing “u cunt” at the counselor.
Everyone is little startled, not really shocked – we were getting used to Stan's odd outbursts. They were kind of cute in a really fucked up way. For me, I was a little moved at how Stan had gone from jittery God-bother who scolded people for swearing to a highly articulate swearer with a strong penchant for the word cunt.
Meds time comes around again. More fucked-up people waiting in the meds room. People like....well, me.
“I love Zyprexa” I say to fill a silence in the room. “Yeah, it's good” Said Liam, the guy with schizophrenia
“I'm actually going to change my name to Zyprexa, but Liam u can call me Prexxy”
“Ok then, Prexxy” he says.
Liam giggles like a little kid
“I used to take Zyprexa 20mg -my body got used to it and now I take another anti-psychotic
“Does it work?”
“Yep”
Liam blinked unevenly as he said it, he had big dark rings around eyes – possibly from the medication.
”Hey come here” he says
“What?” I moved closer to him
“A dog being fist-fucked”
“Pardon?”
“A dog being fist-fucked”
“Wow Liam that was rather random”
“He he, by the guitarist from Metallica”
“Very symbolic Liam, I think. What sort of dog is it?”
“Any dog I like”
As intriguing and disgusting as it is, I have to leave. That night meds crowd is a tough crowd.
Richard and Jimmy sit outside. I tell them what happened.
Jimmy laughs.
“Mate when I was in a psych ward to detox from alcohol I heard some weird shit. This one guy covered in tatts from head to toe told me he was John Howard's right hand man. Whenever he was angry with me he would threaten to make that direct call 'right to the PM'. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that Kevin Rudd was the PM now.”
Richard almost lets out a smile and added;
“I was in a psych ward for one day. I was eating dinner and this girl said 'you cant eat that' and I said 'why not?' and she said 'cause I just farted' and then walked off laughing”
“Yep, them crazies make us laugh” I say
Behind us were Sam and Stan
I overhear their conversation.
“Look, Stan u have recovered a lot since you came here, why does a certificate matter?”
Stan looks at him wide-eyed and says
“I couldn't give a fuck what u think”
Brilliant. It was like the episode of the Simpsons when Ned Flanders finally losing the plot.
And why not? This place is fucking nuts. In a few days people seemed to have got crazier and crazier. Or perhaps it was because the anti-psychotics had made me just that little bit saner. Either way, I'm glad Ned Flanders has realised the world is just at times intolerably shit.
In class we have to right a little easy about our drug of choice. We have to say what it is and why we took it.
Elizabeth is first and talks about Phenergan. “I spent 6 years in my room. I didn't leave my house, I didn't even go to the mailbox. I took packet after packet of Phenergan. I know a lot of people in psych wards are there because they have attempted to kill themselves because of Phenergan. I know people think that Phenergan is a weak drug, but if you take enough of it, it is strong. I knew a woman who took 90 a day. My husband left me, I have declared myself bankrupt, and Phenergan has ruined my life.”
Everyone goes quiet. Sam shoots me a look. Lee leans over to me and says “Oh my god, she left her husband for Phenergan.”
Margie takes Elizabeth’s lead in self disclosure, “I was sexually abused by my stepfather at 13. I started drinking. I drank and I drank and I drank. I felt ashamed and guilty. Then my sister ran off with my husband and my kids. I can't forgive her. I drink and I drink and I drink and I made a fool out of myself and now I want to stop.”
Lee's turn "When I first smoked Crystal Meth I felt amazing. Ice feels like uve just broken the pain barrier in exercise. U feel euphoric. U feel strong, confident, ur everything u always wanted to be. Then u smoke it all the time and that's all u have in ur life, a crack pipe"
The end of class. Shirley tells everyone Wayne left. He went to a Dentist Appointment and never came back. I suppose he had enough. She says Matt has also left. He has been kicked out for drinking.
Matt is gone and Wayne is gone.
I sleep thru lunch. I wake up feeling calm, happy, and in control.
Control.
Boys, gone switched off. Negative thoughts, gone, switched off. Bad memories, gone, switched off. Other people's opinions, gone, switched off.
Control.
But I have some doubts about Zyprexa as well. Surely a pill can't just stop you from loving things. It was kind of like the most profound of most human experiences could just be switched off. Flick on, flick off. I had my little remote control pill. Is it psychotic to love someone who doesn't love you back? Either way, I have found the switch. I have found the remote and I was happy to use it.
Before class, I have a cigarette with my lungs still wheezing. I sit next to Renee. I gazed into her drug-messed face,
“So Renee, you haven't told me how you ended up graduating from here and then relapsing and having to come back.”
“Well where do I start?” she asks.
“Wherever you like, but we only have 10 minutes before class,” I say.
“Well, my biggest problem is a bit of a cliché. I was the middle child. I was the scapegoat in my family,” she says staring at the ground. “I was first offered acid when I was twelve but I didn't want it. Then when I got into my teenage years, I got miserable. There was lots of violence in my family and I tried to kill myself from pills from my parents' medicine cabinet. I was taken to hospital and you know what really fucking pisses me off, my family was in denial. It was kept a secret. They never talked about it. They just wanted to pretend that we were a happy shiny family. After that, I started using pot, beer, acid and speed. I got pregnant at 15 and was forced to have an abortion. I'd been married twice; both times my partners physically and sexually abused me. I'd always turned to drugs. I'd been fucked over so many times, I lost count.”
I stare deep into Renee's pupils, she stares back. I tried as hard as possible to see right into her. To see how much her being matches her words.
“And now you are back here,” I say.
“Yeah, I am healing, I am getting strong, my kids are away from me and that breaks my heart, but I need to be here. When I get out, I am getting a housing commission house in Caboolture. It is a lovely little townhouse,” she said with her head tilted resting on the back of her hand.
“If you dont mind me asking, how does God and Christianity fits into this for you?” I ask.
“Unconditional love,” she says. “It doesn't matter to God about all the things I do wrong. I know he doesn't like it but he will always love me.”
Renee is quite possibly a neurotic and over sensitive and dogmatic and a religious nutter, but I can't help it but like here. I know we all had our own way of getting through all the bad stuff in life, so who was I to set standards for Rachel?
I smiled at her. She put her arm around me.
“I love you Luke,” she said.
“I love you too,” and I hugged her back "Hey, Renee what was with that outburst at Damien the other day?"
"I think he's creepy, I reckon he's a kiddy fiddler"
"Renee, u don't know that for a fact"
"I just have a feeling"
"Yeah, well I think we should stick to the facts with stuff like that"
"He's a creep Luke"
Night-time and three people from alcoholic anonymous come to talk about their 12 step program. Some of the staff aren't happy about it. AA come from a different philosophical model than the CBT model used at Logan House. AA believes that you are not in control of your addiction; therefore, you need to give yourself over to a higher power. The CBT model says that thoughts control everything and you control your thoughts, so you can control your addiction.
The 3 guests all introduce themselves as “alcoholics”.
The first guy “Tug” looks like an ex-bikie. He has a goatee and tatts. He talks about drinking himself to sleep every night 365 days a year. He talked about his broken marriage and how he now only serves the 'man in the mirror.' He says he has been sober for 6 years.
The second person a woman, talks about her alcoholic father, how she looked after her mother, how she was sexually abused, and how she finally got drunk one night and beat the shit out of her father.
The third person, a nervous little man starts talking and I leave. I don’t need to hear endless stories about people getting drunk. These people were still pretty much alcoholics, all you had to do was to ask them. They looked bad, they dress shabbily. They didn't have much in the way of confidence and talked exclusively about alcohol. Their old identity was as a drinker. Their new identity was as an ex drinker. My purpose in life is being an ex-alcoholic. I no longer drink, therefore I am.
After I walk out, half a dozen people follow. Some were angry, some were bored. Others said, the only thing that the meeting did for them was make them feel like to have a drink again.
I sleep well again and get up go I to the gym. I work hard, again. My 12 week new body program is already starting to show results. The other people who use the gym lots were generally the jailbirds. In drug culture I'd come across enough criminals in my time to know how to along with them. They hate authority and they like dirty jokes – really not all different to me.
One guy Chris who has a handsome chiseled face and some cool tattoos offered to teach me how to box.
“I used to be a competitive boxer” he says “I fought in the state titles.
He kind of reminds me of a guy you'd see in gay porn. Like say some thing called Jail Pain 3, starting Chris.
I'm happy to learn, the next time some bitchy queen told me my haircut was 'O.V.A. Ova' I could just say....knock them out.
I put on the gloves and start wacking away, awkwardly and wimpy at the punching bag.
“No, like this mate” Chris says and pow, pow, pow, he has a fixed look of concentration and the bag goes flying.
He tells me to balance, to turn my wrist as I punch and to keep my head down low- to protect my head.
I like being taught how to fight by a bad arse, but it's exhausting. My little asthmatic body is not strictly speaking built for long distance punch-ons.
"If anybody puts their hands on u. Head butt them, whack them in the balls, elbow them in the face and punch them in the stomach"
"Can't I just say 'don't touch me’?”
"If that doesn't work, then punch the shit out of them"
"By what uve described I could end up hospitalising someone"
"That's the idea"
I sit down to rest, he sits down next to me.
“So ur friend Matt has gone?”
“Yeah, they wanted to kick me out as well. I said I had nothing to do with the stuff Matt did wrong”
“I think people put u in a category cause ur from Jail”
“Yeah, well I didn’t anything wrong”
“If I were u Steve I'd go out of me to defy the stereotype. It's wrong to think that cause uve done time that ur a certain type of person”
“I'm just here to get my shit together”
“How long were u in prison for?”
“8 years, on and off”
I wonder if he's had gay sex.
“What for?"
“Robberies, anything to feed my habit. At my worst, I shot-up $800 worth of smack a day”
I like this guy for some reason. He was bad, but he seemed....honest....honest about being bad or something.
“Come back tomorrow, man” he said “I'll teach some more moves tomorrow”
We walked off together. A staff member saw us and kind of frowned at me. I guess she didn’t want me to be the bitch in the 'plastic gangsters'.
The Zyprexa continues to make me good. I am productive, I am not a zombie, I am sleeping, I read Crime and Punishment and write in my journal like a mad man.
Shirley asks me how I feel about taking anti-psychotics.
“Shirley, I have a long history of Schizophrenia in my family. It doesn’t surprise me that Zyprexa would work on wateva is wrong with my brain. Ive found something that works and now the leprechauns aren't telling me light fires anymore”
“Very funny, Luke, as long as you’re feeling better” she says.
Renee is sitting outside the office when I walk out.
"What's going on?" I ask
“I'm a bit worried Jimmy” she says.
“Why?”
“He's got a lot on his mind. He's just found out his Dad is still alive”
“I know, he told me. That would be hard, especially seeing as though Jimmy has some guilt issues with his own parenting” I say surprised at how much I had taken on the lingo of the cult.
“I know, I'm just worried that I told some stuff about me and now he doesn’t respect me”
“Yeah, what do u tell him?”
“ I told him what a slut Ive been and how I sometimes used to fuck multiple guys in one night”
“Hey trust me, I understand men. He would have of acted all sympathetic to ur face and then quietly went off to wank about it after”
Renee pissed herself laughing
“It's true' I say “Don't personalise his bad mood, Rachel” - again sounding like a rehab counselor “Why do you think u took so many risks sexually anyway?”
“I'm still trying to work that out” She says.
“Well I know Shirley thinks I'm a sex addict, cause I am constantly starring in bisexual orgies. I have done some fairly wrong stuff.
'What made u do all that stuff”
“I guess it was fun and experimentation and, um, I had a sexual experience with my cousin when I was 9 which has kind of set me off”
“That's awful, I hate that shit. Luke, do u think most gay guys have been molested?”
“I dont think so”
“I reckon they would have been”
Excuse me
“Renee, there is no evidence to back up that assertion. In many cases male to male sexual abuse leads to people becoming homophobic”
“Well, Luke I think experiences like that can shape ur sexuality”
“Perhaps in a way, but I believe sexuality – as in which gender ur attracted too comes prior to experience.”
“I disagree completely, it makes sense doesn’t it – that u get molested by a man, so u think that is normal sexual activity”
“Gay sex is not inherently abuse like sexual abuse, Renee. Its two consenting adults and I think unless u showed me a study that indicates a higher number of gay men being molested when they were young then I would not be convinced”
Someone called out to Renee, “Villa meeting” and I am relieved that she is gone.
She had been spinning me the standard fundamentalist line about homosexuality. Of course, how could God create an abomination like two people expressing their deep love for one another? Renee was right, love is a sin. I should address my need to love other people in therapy.
I walk thru the office, someone has written a little note on the whiteboard.
“The more we care about the things outside our control, they more it controls us”
Rachel's warped fundamentalist hippie chick view on the world actually has nothing to with me. I have to let it go.
The Zyprexa continues to make me feel amazing. Fear could be overcome, failure was simply a matter of perception. The world may well be 50% shit, but I will always own the space between my ears. With the onset of Zyprexa I was back in control. 3 days later and I might be the happiest I've ever been. Getting all that shit of my system about high school helped as well. I feel better than I ever did on crystal meth and on heroin. I was enlightened just from swallowing a single pill.
However, I know there is still more shit to work out. I know there are still more demons to confront and to conquer.
It's graduation time again. This time it's James or 'Ginger Nuts' as Sam liked to call him. He's not particularly popular at rehab, but he is respected. During the speeches people say stuff like
“We admire ur resolve”
“Even if people didn’t like u, they respected ur stand on things”
“We like that u didn’t become part of the cool group'
Everyone claps. Nothing really came close to the kind of emotional outpouring that had happened with Polly.
We eat cake after. Stan is odd today. I heard muttering around the cake table 'cunt, cunt, cunt'. His eyes were opened big, his skin was flushed – if u didn’t know any better you'd think he was on his way to being tortured by the Khmer Rouge.
Stan has baked two cakes. Unfortanetly they don't look the best, nobody's eating them. I go and tell half a dozen people outside to go and eat his cake or
“He will have an episode and I'm scared he might target me”
People come in and take some of his cake and then throw it in the bin when he's not looking.
A counselor goes up to him.
“We forgot to give u this certificate Stan” she says
It was his certificate for moving into the next phase of rehab, he was supposed to get it at the graduation.
“Forgot?” he says “Forgot? Well forget this - fuck u”
He picks up the certificate and throws it into the fireplace. Stan at this moment, only understands the Angry God not the God of love and forgiveness.
His face is now a mixture of terror and anger. Just before he walks out of the room he says with impeccable timing “u cunt” at the counselor.
Everyone is little startled, not really shocked – we were getting used to Stan's odd outbursts. They were kind of cute in a really fucked up way. For me, I was a little moved at how Stan had gone from jittery God-bother who scolded people for swearing to a highly articulate swearer with a strong penchant for the word cunt.
Meds time comes around again. More fucked-up people waiting in the meds room. People like....well, me.
“I love Zyprexa” I say to fill a silence in the room. “Yeah, it's good” Said Liam, the guy with schizophrenia
“I'm actually going to change my name to Zyprexa, but Liam u can call me Prexxy”
“Ok then, Prexxy” he says.
Liam giggles like a little kid
“I used to take Zyprexa 20mg -my body got used to it and now I take another anti-psychotic
“Does it work?”
“Yep”
Liam blinked unevenly as he said it, he had big dark rings around eyes – possibly from the medication.
”Hey come here” he says
“What?” I moved closer to him
“A dog being fist-fucked”
“Pardon?”
“A dog being fist-fucked”
“Wow Liam that was rather random”
“He he, by the guitarist from Metallica”
“Very symbolic Liam, I think. What sort of dog is it?”
“Any dog I like”
As intriguing and disgusting as it is, I have to leave. That night meds crowd is a tough crowd.
Richard and Jimmy sit outside. I tell them what happened.
Jimmy laughs.
“Mate when I was in a psych ward to detox from alcohol I heard some weird shit. This one guy covered in tatts from head to toe told me he was John Howard's right hand man. Whenever he was angry with me he would threaten to make that direct call 'right to the PM'. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that Kevin Rudd was the PM now.”
Richard almost lets out a smile and added;
“I was in a psych ward for one day. I was eating dinner and this girl said 'you cant eat that' and I said 'why not?' and she said 'cause I just farted' and then walked off laughing”
“Yep, them crazies make us laugh” I say
Behind us were Sam and Stan
I overhear their conversation.
“Look, Stan u have recovered a lot since you came here, why does a certificate matter?”
Stan looks at him wide-eyed and says
“I couldn't give a fuck what u think”
Brilliant. It was like the episode of the Simpsons when Ned Flanders finally losing the plot.
And why not? This place is fucking nuts. In a few days people seemed to have got crazier and crazier. Or perhaps it was because the anti-psychotics had made me just that little bit saner. Either way, I'm glad Ned Flanders has realised the world is just at times intolerably shit.
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