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VAD Australia
20.07.25: I want to apologize to Go Gentle Australia for some things I wrote. It is an important cause, and it's important to donate, and spread awareness, and it's important to show appreciation for the advances made, and for the people who are able to share their stories. As it turns out, despite what I wrote above, I do need to edit - at least what I wrote about Go Gentle, which I admit sounds compassionless, and not very far-thinking. 'You don't like me, so I'm not going to support you' - I don't believe in that attitude, and it's not who I think I am. I also don't believe that because I am overwhelmed by all the problems and causes in the world it's a reason to just stop all efforts. Pick something, and offer what you can. I feel that my website is a better way for me to contribute than sending money. I have spent thousands of hours writing, and a lot more than that thinking, and I have had experiences that allow me to form unique insights. I have donated to various causes over the years, yes, and I have continued with my website, despite lack of support. I think I am saying things that need to be said. In one way or another, people have let me know that they think I am not saying anything relevant, that I am a useless and stupid person. They're probably right that I don't conform to Australian Values, or think or communicate like Australians, that I don't fit here. I know people have wanted me to leave, be silent, or kill myself. Not too long ago, I received a death threat - a day or so before PD was going away for work, someone said they were in my neighbourhood, and going to take me down. With Go Gentle, it's not just things like when you speak about VAD history and mention how ironic it is that while NT was the first to have a form of it, it's now the only place in Australia that doesn't - or that Philip Nitschke isn't even mentioned. He has been treated abominably by a country he risked a lot to help. On a personal level, every time I've visted the site, I have felt compassion for the personal stories, and I do want things to keep progressing. However, there's something between the lines that keeps saying that Australians do not believe I am in my right mind, and that because I'm not useful or loved, I do not deserve or have not earned VAD. Maybe it's about choosing battles, and leaving some things for the future, but I feel that there will always be something about me that Australians do not like. I think Canada will have some form of VAD for mental illness around 2027, but I have not been monitored there, and I also no longer have a passport - which is also another reason why I wouldn't qualify for VAD in Australia. I don't think I can get another passport. It was too hard last time. I can't go through it again. And the truth is, I don't want to. I have always felt my passports were fake, that I had to pretend I was someone I didn't want to be in order to support a system I don't support. When people say, if you don't like Australia, leave, we don't want you here anyway, you have nothing of value to offer us, I really don't want to stay somewhere I'm not wanted, I don't want to be a drain on resources, but I'm not sure I actually can leave unless I'm booted out, or something. And I feel like I am not wanted anywhere in the world - and I think this is for being brave enough to 'be myself', and not some version of myself that fits the status quo. I think VAD is there for Australians and Permanent Residents, but I think in the last newsletter I read, only Australians were mentioned. This might have been an oversight, or I might not have read carefully enough, but whatever the case, I am not able or willing to get a Canadian passport, or apply for Australian citizenship. I can understand and feel compassion for an extremely wide range of causes. Mentally ill people and those with addictions aren't given enough of a voice - and when they do, they often judge themselves in the same ways society does. You can sum one person's life up by calling them a 'drunk' or 'crack addict' - and sympathy immediately goes to family, friends, society - even when all of these things could be part of the problem, and could be more of the solution. Hospitals here seem completely overwhelmed and overburdened - and even people like PD who are functioning at a high level and keep trying despite all the stuffups and games of Telephone, the lost or disappearing appointments - have a really difficult time. One nurse explained to him that as the population has increased signficantly, medical services have not. Nurses were right to go on strike, and psychiatrists in NSW - shouldn't it have been easy to get them the same pay as those in other states? And I don't think it was only about that - probably all states can't care for their patients in the ways they want to - because they don't have access to enough resources. So here I am bitching and moaning about Australia again, but when I get a hard-sell call for a donation that suggests my problem is that I lack compassion and vision - not to mention the rather funny thing that I'm being asked can't you imagine what it's like to have an intact mind an infirm body - from people who don't think my mind is intact. Domestic violence is out of control in Australia, and if women leave, guess what, they're statistically likely to become homeless/unhoused. Women in my age group are the fastest growing number of homeless people. I've already mentioned how it feels to be hacked, stalked and harassed, that police don't really care, women are told to stay off phones and social media - in a computer age, where are all the fucking cyber units? And why do we have an extremely weak system, where phones are easy to hack, and even the old land lines go through the internet, and if you receive death threats, you're supposed to go to a fucking weblink. Australian Values: tough robust Australian women do not complain, they go on with their lives, and if a female prime minister does try to say something about it all, there still seems to persist a kind of thing where silence is strength, and part of the Australian character is to let blokes be blokes. I sincerely wanted to apologize, but maybe I can't. I think about a lot of world issues, and I have trouble letting go. When I meet people, one of the things that happens is that I have trouble setting boundaries, and while people are thinking my head is stuck up my ass, I'm actually also thinking about the problems of others - even authority figures, or I start processing it all after. And because of my social position/irrelevance, because people think I'm an empty shell of a person, it's like they're super hard on everything I say, even when it's clear I'm anxious - and rightly so, because it seems like everyone in the world wants to put me in my place for even daring to be a little feisty (not abusive) - it's like I don't have the right to show any spirit at all. Do we want to go on to human rights abuses in 'detention centres', or to indigenous Australians? Yes, yes, more honey than vinegar. Blahblahblah. PD, wasn't able to do as many trips this year for work, only one short one, due to a health problem. Now as for whoever contacted me, maybe they just thought it was fun to try to scare me, or maybe their plans were foiled by PD's health issues. I'm not going to get into the whole thing, but even though I rarely leave the house and in particular have hospital-related trauma, I went to Emergency with PD, and I stayed all night. He was terrified, and had to wait way too long - as did other patients there, and I was terrified for them, too. This is not a detailed description - he had some kidney stone issues, one was in an urgent place, a stent was placed, this resulted in complications, and at a certain point his bladder had filled and filled, was at risk of bursting, and he was in excruciating pain. (It's extremely difficult to get any contact with his doctor - and while PD might be worried about long-term complications and whatnot, he can't get in to see his doctor until October, when he'd already waited months when the situation was already 'urgent'.) Part of what this means is that due to the current state of the medical system, some people who qualify for VAD will not be able to get it - and they might die in excruciating pain before they even get a diagnosis. There was a person beside us who had a customized wheelchair and so probably had some long-term or recognized condition that would be easily searchable on the database, and he was making such sounds of pain it would scare anyone - and I could not believe how long it took to get anything done. But, it didn't actually look like anyone was lallygagging, it seems the problem is probably protocol and a system that needs an organizational overhaul (and again, an overburdened system). I felt torn trying to be with PD, but also hearing this other person, and through the curtain saying to him I'm sorry, I hear you. I did manage to look over/after PD for weeks after, preparing meals, doing laundry, being there for emotional support, ordering shopping online, etc, and my doctor's words about it being good to be useful completely missed the point. I could barely function, but I felt compassion and empathy, and I didn't give a flying fuck about being useful. I didn't do it to earn points in heaven or society. I don't want to go to my doctor because I know she's required to treat me, by law and by oath, but it's extremely hard to feel that while she tries to remain neutral, I leave every time feeling she's annoyed and disgusted by me. And when she's wrong, she won't admit it - she'll minimize it, or deflect back to some other personal failing of mine. OK, I realize how I sound, and I spent so much of my life trying to just take it, and not escalate situations. My lack of softness and subtlety is a sign that I am not 'like me' any more. Most people who constantly face ignorant assumptions eventually reach a breaking point. I do not lack compassion or empathy. I am ill and I know what medical treatment I want. I want VAD. I am not many steps away from homelessness. I am probably not far away from losing my bank account. If anything happens to PD, I won't have any friends in this country. I won't have anywhere to go. This is not to say that I don't feel compassion for humans in difficult circumstances everywhere, or that I don't support VAD in Australia, or that if I can't have it, I don't want anyone to have it. It's nothing like that. I certainly don't want to hang myself and have PD find me - which might ruin some of the years he's got left. I do know that if I could have it, not only would it be peaceful for me, it would be peaceful for him. He already believes I've lived my life in pain, and he would also, because he has compassion, feel horrified to think of the despair and aloneness I'd have to go through to get the job done. It just seems like a waste. Not about me, but about all the people like me who know what they want and don't want to create even further ripple effects of trauma to the world. It's not fair to make it a competition or to try to quantify things. People suffer in different ways. If it seems like things can't be that bad for me considering how much I write (whine and complain), and that although I say I don't have the energy to edit, I still manage to write better than a lot of people - well, maybe you should think of me as fucking Phar Lap. (Yes, I know grandiosity is a common aspect of mental illness. But if you do think I can think and write, why is the first instinct to compete and fight with me? Am I some kind of threat to the status quo or complacency? If you read between the lines or can admit it, I have the kind of mind that could be helpful if I wasn't fucking shut out of everything.) I can understand prioritization, or choosing battles depending on the climate, but I'd appreciate even a few kind, hopeful words such that I don't feel like a pariah everywhere I go in Australia. Maybe that would be compassionate, even if I don't ever get VAD? Is compassion an Australian Value? ->exile on meme st: a diary ->xesce.net  |
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