Hubris.co.nz

A year ago, I went to a party, got drunk, and when a guy I didn’t really know asked me to take him home, I said yes. We went home, had consensual sex, and eventually went to sleep. In the morning, he woke up, asked me if I was awake, climbed on top of my chest, pinning me to the bed, and shoved his cock down my throat. He grasped my head so tight that I could hardly move it, and I was gagging so much that my mouth filled with vomit, and he just thrust harder and harder. I could hardly breathe, and the rest of me was frozen from the shock. I did not want this. I couldn’t stop it, all I could do was hope that he’d finish quickly and release me. So I lay there, choking and wondering if I had asked for it, if this was what I deserved for everyone that I’d ever slept with, for presuming that I could bring home someone and still be safe, and when he climbed off, he lay beside me as if nothing had happened and to stop myself from crying I curled into him like it was something I had wanted to happen.

I need to be very clear here – at no point did I say no. I didn’t have a chance to. But at no point did I say yes either. When he had me pinned down, if I had been able to move at all, I could have tried to push him off – but I was terrified that if I tried, he still might not stop, and that would turn it into a whole different situation. I had friends in the next room, and while it was one thing for them to have to hear me having good sex, I didn’t want them to hear me having bad sex. And I was in shock, believing that this was what I’d been asking for. He stayed in my bed for a while after that, dragging my hands down to his cock repeatedly, continuing to touch me. I opted for a “I’m trying to sleep” approach, sliding across the bed, too hot to hide under the covers but just hoping that he’d leave, which he did eventually, sheepishly mumbling goodbye as he stumbled out.

I spent the rest of the day pretending like nothing had happened, apologising to my friends who were staying for all the noise, and making jokes about how fucked up my hair was. “He was clearly right-handed” said my friend as she took a photo of my hair from the back. Turns out that a guy continuingly shoving your head down to his dick and then later pinning you down makes it pretty hard to comb your hair out afterwards.

(That’s not the first time I’ve posted that image on Hubris. The first time I described the guy as “kind of pushy”. Back in January I was still determined not to talk about it or to acknowledge it really. But y’know what? No.)

On the Sunday afterwards, I went to Xmas Dinner with the Lovehawks, and I told them the story, trying to frame it in a “hey, isn’t this funny, ha ha, oh you should have seen my hair, hilariousness” kind of way, because I’m one of those douchebags who uses humour to deal with things that they’re not okay with.  But of course they saw through my false bravado, and were like “You know, that sounds kind of rapey”. And there it was. There was the word that I’d not wanted to use. For months I would cling to the ‘y’ on the end there, before my counselor asked me how else I would define sex without consent. But I am skipping ahead of myself.

The next day someone asked me in that nudge nudge wink wink kind of way how my Friday was, and told me everyone knew what I’d been up to. That made me sick to my stomach and I couldn’t stop crying, so I rushed home to hide, which made for a really awkward conversation with my manager, who was really concerned about me but I didn’t want to tell him what was going on. I was supposed to be having lunch with Iva who I hadn’t seen in years, so she came over instead, and my first introduction to her boyfriend was for him to hear me talking about what had happened, trying to be calm. After they left I was still shaken, and another friend came over to see if I was okay. She held me while I cried some more, and then helped me compose an email to the guy telling him that what he did was not okay.

“I think it’s important to let you know that I was uncomfortable with some of the things that happened on Friday night. I’m not sure what you’ll do with this information, but you need to know that it left me feeling more than a little upset. I had a lot of fun before we went to sleep, but that doesn’t mean it was okay for you to wake me up by forcing your dick into my mouth again. I didn’t say no at the time, because I was pinned down, but I didn’t say yes either. And that’s not okay.”

I held off on sending it for a couple of hours while I thought about it, wondering if I should escalate the situation or not, or if I should just accept that sluts like me eventually get what they deserve, and I should just fucking deal with it. And I knew that thinking like that made me a bad feminist, and the fact that I lacked the fortitude to stop it happening when it happened made me a bad feminist, and that thinking there was such a thing as a bad feminist also made me a bad feminist. Eventually I pushed the send button though, after tracking down a non-work email address for him.

I went out to dinner that night with Kate Benton who I hadn’t seen in years, and it should have been amazing because that’s when I found out she and Rob were engaged. Instead I could hardly open my mouth, I was spacey and shaken, terrified thinking about what the response to my email would be. And also, I was feeling dreadful for having sent it. It would have been a hell of  a thing to receive. I felt awful for the way that I was with Kate and Rob and Jess, that I was too wrapped up in my own shit to celebrate properly with them, or be responsive in any way, and I didn’t want to talk about my own life at all, which until then had been going pretty great. And so I got home to his reply. He was shocked, apologetic, and thought he had behaved like a dog. I cried some more, and wasn’t sure how to respond. I ended up getting my ex boyfriend to help me with my wording. For someone who works in communication, it was particularly frustrating to find myself so short of words to express myself.

I decided that unlike the time that I was assaulted when I was 14, this would not be something I felt the need to bottle up and keep secret, so I spoke about it openly with my friends when I felt it was appropriate. That was a hell of a learning experience. One girl said “Oh, if you’d done self-defense courses, you’d have been able to push him off”. Oh, is that so? Cos what I really needed was another way to think about what I had done wrong. Thank you so much! That was the tipping point with her, and she was gone from the people I cared about. When I told another friend, she asked me how much I’d had to drink and went back to talking about her work. I switched off then too. I was reminded of a friend who when I’d told back in 2006 that a taxi driver had tried to grab me in his cab was like “well, were you flirting with him?”. No, and even if I had been, that still wasn’t okay. Others tried to move off the subject as soon as possible. My silence was their comfort. I found myself wondering if some of the uneasiness some of my male friends displayed was due to them questioning if they’d ever done a similar thing and hadn’t realised it. I think that I made jokes about it also was disconcerting for some, but that’s the way I process and handle. At times I felt guilty for talking about something that was hard for people to hear, but I didn’t know what else to do. I found myself telling people I didn’t really know about it, because I needed somewhere to put it. I couldn’t keep it inside.

Outside of the mostly safe place with my friends, when I had to have interactions with him, my body would tense up, and I’d spend time dry retching afterwards. My work suffered and I got in trouble for making stupid mistakes. I thought about leaving but reminded myself that I hadn’t done anything wrong. I started reading his twitter feed, stalking like a crazy person, looking for any sign of remorse or an indication that he wasn’t having an easier time of it. I drank more and laughed louder when he was around.  There was a lot of arguments on the internet at the time about Julian Assange, and a lot of people who I thought I respected going off onto CIA plots, and talking about how sex without a condom doesn’t mean rape, and every single thing I read about it made me feel worse, and like I had less credibility. And I was terrified thinking about the next time I slept with someone, wondering whether or not i’d be able to handle it, if I’d freak out, and if I’d ever be able to enjoy giving blow jobs again.

As it happened, I ended up getting drunk and going home with a female friend of mine, who said she wanted to give me a safe experience to help me move past it. For the most part, it was lovely, and positive. But I still couldn’t get over it. And strangely, I started worrying about him as well. I doubted that he had the same kind of amazingly caring friends that I had who would sleep with him to help him work through it. I didn’t know if he’d told anyone at all. And I wondered if he thought it was just an “oops, my bad!” situation that could be easily overcome, that hadn’t had any lasting damage. I wished that I’d said more in my initial email to him, but wasn’t sure if it was fair to bring it up again. I ended up messaging him at 4 in the morning asking if he wanted to go get a coffee sometime and have a chat. “I’d rather we just talked on email” came the reply. I felt shut down, and angry. I was trying to be good about this but I was not okay. So I went to see my counselor again.

I hadn’t seen her in over a year, and so I felt a little defeated going back, although I know I can go see her any time I need maintenance. So I cried in her office and we had intense discussion about semantics. As always, she suggested that I examine myself the way that I would a friend, because I am too hard on myself. If I heard about someone pinning one of my friends down and forcing their cock down their throat, how would I feel? I’d feel like fucking killing them. She suggested that I might have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder when I told her about having an anxiety attack in the dentist’s chair as I was held down and stuff done to my mouth by the dental hygienist. I failed to articulate to her that I know that he didn’t mean to have sex with me against my will, but because I didn’t consent that’s exactly what happened. She said that I was being too nice to him, that I shouldn’t be so worried about his comfort because he clearly hadn’t been worried about mine, and that I was well within my rights to send him another email, if I thought it would help me.

I asked if you wanted to go get coffee, with the intention that we’d talk about, like, music, or movies, or pop culture, or pretty much anything at all that was just casual conversation and nothingness, but I didn’t explain that properly. I said I wanted to “normalise”. What I meant is that I wanted it to be different from how it is right now when every time I have to be in the same room with you, I tense up and I get panicky. I know you didn’t set out to violate me, and that you are sorry that I felt that way, but the truth is that I’m not over it, and I’m not okay.

I struggled with whether to tell you this or not, because I wasn’t sure if it would help me at all, but the not talking about it isn’t working, and I need that to change. I’m sure that you were shocked when I emailed you to tell you how unokay I was about being pinned down, but did it have an impact on you beyond that at all? Like, did you even give it a second thought ? Did it make you question the way you live your life? Worry about how you will deal with people in the future? Stir up a whole fucking bunch of assault trauma that happened in the past that you thought you’d dealt with? Because that’s what’s happened to me.

And yes, it’s been a couple of months, and no, I am still not over this. And I don’t know what to do about it. I do want to normalise, I want to be comfortable around you. I hate that I can’t offer a solution, that all I am presenting is a problem. Maybe there’s nothing that can be done about it but time. I know we weren’t really friends before we slept together, and I don’t expect that we’ll ever become so, but I hope you understand why I need to say these things instead of being bottled up and seething with useless rage. I don’t have the solution now, and I don’t know when I will, and while I’ve tried to express or at least sumarise everything that I’m feeling right now, there’ll probably be new emotions later that I haven’t dealt with. Like I said, I don’t know how you feel about this – or if you’ve even thought about it lately, but I’d really like to know – do you have any ideas on how I (and you) could feel better about what happened?

His reply was really good, and considered. He asked me a couple of questions which were totally okay to ask, and we agreed that time would be the best way to heal, and I said that I was going to move on. Rather than focus on what had happened, I tried to make plans for the future. When I finally got a chance to talk to the married man about it – the only person I’ve ever slept with in which every single thing I did I absolutely wanted to do, rather than feeling a sense of obligation or whatever – once he was done offering to get his friends to beat the shit out of the guy, he made the good suggestion that the next time I slept with someone, I should tie them up in order to feel more comfortable. That’s exactly what I did when I met a guy from OKCupid and took him home. I explained that I didn’t like having hands on my head while I was sucking cock, and that actually, I’d like to tie him up.  Success!

I went to Slutwalk, in the dress I was wearing the night of the party, and was interviewed by Radio New Zealand about it. I thought the march was great but had to leave during the speeches because they were too much. Mad props to Jason and Kate for being there.

Time passed and the memory faded somewhat. Eventually the guy was leaving for greener pastures, and since people were talking about him, it made me remember everything again which was really hard, although I wished him well. In the speeches, someone referenced the party, and everyone turned and looked at me and laughed. I was the punchline of a joke that actually wasn’t funny at all, and so I am super glad that Kelly was around for me to bawl and bawl and bawl onto. That shook me for days.

Time has helped a lot though. What’s also been incredibly healing was finding a dom and experiencing what consensual submissive sex is actually like. Discussing your limits beforehand and knowing you can change your mind at any time, and having someone be absolutely aware of how you are feeling while ostensibly treating you like a wet hole is really liberating. You’re actually in charge the whole time. I appreciate that this isn’t the solution for everybody, but it’s nice to know that rough sex doesn’t actually have to be the kind that leaves you traumatised for a year.

So what do we take away from all of this? Because it has to be a learning experience, right?

I guess most importantly, there is nothing as sexy as enthusiastic consent. Don’t ever presume anything in bed. Make sure your partner is really into it. And you or your partner can withdraw consent at any time.

If your friend tells you about a negative experience they’ve had, make sure you listen to them. Don’t judge them, or suggest other ways that they should have coped. They did whatever they needed to do in order to get through the experience at the time. Believe me – they’ve already worked over all the alternatives in their mind a thousand times. However they need to talk about it or act out afterwards is up to them.

And I hope that you never have something similar happen to you, but if you do, you need to remember that no matter what, it wasn’t your fault, and that there are many amazing people you can talk to about it. If your “friends” make you feel bad about it, find someone better to help you deal with it. Time helps a lot. It’s not a magic fixall though, and I’m still kinda choked up as I finish this off, but at least it’s done now.

Guest post from Mazzy, because here is a better place for it than on her family site.

I am enraged by a Campbell Live article I caught the end of tonight, featuring Dr Makary and his ‘Time for a change’ campaign to change our culture around alcohol.

Putting aside the whole alcohol culture discussion, which I actually agree needs a shake up, I cannot believe what I heard in this story (which you can watch on the TV3 on demand site). The message that came through loud and clear was if a girl drinks then it’s her fault she gets sexually assaulted or raped. I mean, she put herself in that position. If only she didn’t like sex and didn’t drink – then this wouldn’t happen! The story title by the way is ‘Is alcohol ruining how young people interact?’ Watch it and see for yourself.

For those who can’t watch it, what I write below is in chronological order from the item where they talk about girls drinking in NZ. It’s slightly paraphrased but not by much. Most of it is word for word:

• NZ is the only country in the world where women are more promiscuous than men according to a 2007 Durex study.
• It’s cause and effect. You lose your inhibitions because you want to have sex and you have sex because you lose your inhibitions. And that’s putting young women at grave risk.

They then give an example of a school student who was drunk and comatose at a school party in the Coromandel. She was sexually assaulted and the sex act was filmed and passed around by students’ cell phones.

Actual quote directly following this example: “Once a girl puts herself into this position it’s very difficult to defend her and it’s very difficult for her not to compromise her safety and the rest of her life.”

Really? Really?

So first of all, women liking sex is a problem. We’re the only country where women are more promiscuous than men. Something must be wrong! It must be because we drink. Drinking makes us promiscuous and therefore promiscuity makes us drink…because then it’s easier to have more sex! and by wanting sex and getting drunk, we’re the ones who are putting ourselves at risk of rape and assault. It’s our fault. If only we weren’t so damn horny and intoxicated.

Do you hear the angry sarcasm in my voice right now?

The example and that quote were the last straw. Last time I checked, being drunk and comatose was not consent to engage in any kind of sexual activity. That student had every right to be drunk and vulnerable and safe. She was at a school party. She was probably with friends. Her only regret should have been a terrible hangover the next morning. By getting drunk she did not suddenly become open to sex with anyone, and she didn’t ask for those non-consensual sexual acts to be filmed and distributed.

The people who put her in grave risk, the only ones who compromised her safety and the rest of her life, were those who sexually assaulted her and the ones who filmed it and passed it on. They are the ones whose behaviour needs public derision and to be made an example of. They are the ones who should be held up as an example of what is wrong with our culture.

Were the people who did this to her mentioned at all as part of the problem? No. They were not.

I hope against hope the victim in that example didn’t see Campbell Live tonight and that she never becomes aware of how her ordeal was used as an example of how women are responsible for getting themselves assaulted. Imagine the grief and trauma she is already dealing with – then add this on top of it.

Now multiply that by the thousands of women who have been through something similar and think about how that message made them feel. Their fault. Not their attackers’ fault. Theirs. Because they had the gall to get drunk or enjoy sex or think they were safe.

Imagine that.

Cognitive dissonance teaches us that if you don’t think what you’re doing is right, you can either change your actions, or you can change the way you think about it. So when I was sleeping with you, I used all kinds of ways to convince myself it was okay, including thinking that I was actually special to you. When I see that you’re continuing to whore around, that brings that belief crashing down. So I’ve changed my actions and you’re gone.

***

Change your belief or change your action. Because I am tired of being unemployed, I started referring to myself as a freelancer instead. Then I realised that actually, I am, so I’ve started my own business doing content-writing and online media advice. It’s called So Content. I have business cards and mentors and many meetings. I feel productive and talented, it’s good.

***

Change your belief or change your action. I lost my shit at Mum the other night in front of my aunt and cousins when she kept making jokes at me about her friend who assaulted me when I was 12. She said it never happened. I yelled and stormed out. She came running out to apologise. I wish the It’s Not Okay phrase had been around then.

***

Other things? I dunno. I’m going to see a gynecologist in October to deal with how much I lose my shit in the week before my period. Immoral Terrace continues to be a refuge for people in need which I love. There’s a prom coming up on Friday at 361, and I need a date. Any volunteers? I had a lovely party the other weekend, which was great. This week is going to be insanely busy with meetings and friends and the food show and secret intrigues and networking and going on a roadtrip to Wanganui on Saturday. I’ve set a date for my 30th, it’s going to be TripleX-themed, and it’s on June 26. Come along!

***

1. I really, really wish that Holly and Hef were still together, and that they’d get married and have a baby.
2. I am not that ashamed to say that really like the movie Titanic, mostly because it reminds me of being 17 and going on the ferry to the Gathering,
3. Unless something happens in them, I change my sheets once a fortnight, even though I have so many sets of linen that they fill a large filing cabinet.
4. I haven’t smoked pot or done any illegal drugs since 2005, and I won’t be doing any ever again on account of being crazy, but I miss getting stoned, a lot.
5. Although you wouldn’t be able to tell from the state of my desk and bedroom floor, I can be really anal about my possessions, and really like to keep my books, DVDs and music in alphabetical & chronological order.
6. Right now I have at least six types of moisturiser that I use regularly
7. I have editing rights on about seven different websites, or maybe more.
8. I am still in contact with only three people that I’ve had sex with.
9. At last count (which is right now) I have pashed 33 people, or it might have been 43 because I was adjusting my stereo and messed up my hands. No wait, it’s 34/44. I _always_ forget one of the three people who I’ve had sex with that I’m still friends with (sorry!). Of those 34 people, I don’t know the names of two of them – the girl on New Year’s 2001/2 and the woman I kissed at Kowhai’s party last year.
10. I often struggle to understand why anyone would be friends with me.
11. I am really amazing at guestimating the perfect pours when I am making cocktails. What I put in the shaker will fill however many glasses I have at whatever size they are perfectly.
12. My least favourite phrase right now is “value for money”.
13. I vote Green to ease my guilt for not doing enough good deeds with the privileges that I have in life.
14. When I was 12, a friend of my mother’s grabbed my ass and winked at me in the way that you should not wink at a 12 year old girl. I slept with my pocket knife under my pillow that night. Now he’s on a Lotto ad and my parents make jokes about him. I do not appreciate that at all.
15.My iPod has three songs by 30 Seconds To Mars on it. I’m kind of embarrassed but I love My So-Called Life so dearly that I can’t not. Plus it’s Bambi’s fault.
16. If you forced me to choose only one Daily Show correspondent to watch for the rest of my life, apart from Jon Stewart, of course, I think I would have to go with Demetri Martin, but it would depend on whose piece I had seen most recently.
17. There are empty coffee cups that are at least six months old in my car.
18. When I used to see a counselor in Newmarket, it was $130. My counselor in Wellington is $85 when she’s not covered by work, but my psychiatrist who wears vaguely Cosby-as-done-by-Hallenstines-in-1998-sweaters is $170.
19. I am now physically incapable of sleeping without the aid of zopiclone. This worries me a lot but I am too crazy right now to try and come off it.
20. Although I am still angered by the stupidness of their ads, I buy Colgate Triple Action toothpaste. I will never buy a Nair product again though for the way that they state that you can’t be feminine and hairy. For the record, I am hairy like an animal.
21. I worry that if someone was attracted to me it would be because they have a fetish for fat chicks, and then I judge them for that, and I judge myself for judging them. It is fun times.
22. I frequently find myself wishing that I had the power to snap necks when people keep talking and annoying me.
23. I often don’t rinse out the coffee plunger at work. Yes, I leave it for the cleaning staff to deal with.
24. I like my coffee as a large latte, my white wine aromatic, my red wine boisterous, and my cocktails strong enough to overpower an elephant.
25. I have had almost a bottle of wine tonight and I suspect that at least one of my answers has made you very uncomfortable that you asked.

I’ve thought about writing a lot over the past week as my latest Osama missive, but I haven’t, but luckily now I am full of bile and rage today. Okay, you know how angry the new ‘Lisa’ ALAC ad makes me, with its very clear implication that it is Lisa’s fault that she is assaulted in an alleyway, because she was drinking? It’s something that Julie at The Handmirror has been fighting against too. It was bad enough that when ALAC finally responded, it was a really badly cut & paste job (neither of us actually ‘called’), but today I received a letter in response to my official complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority.

The Complainant said that sexual assault (even if it is only inferred) has no place in an advertisment where there is no warning as to content.

Duplicate Complainants raised similar issues (Um, wtf? That is NOTHING to do with my complaint)

The relevant provisions were Basic Principle 4 and Rules 5, 7, and 11 of the Code of Ethics. (Actually, I complained under Principle 3: No advertisement should be misleading or deceptive or likely to mislead or deceive the consumer – as well as 4: All advertisements should be prepared with a due sense of social responsibility to consumers and to society.)

The Chairman acknowledged the Complainant’s concerns. However, in his opinion, the advertisment was simply a hard hitting but valid portrayal of self abuse (my emphasis) using alcohol that resulted in a situation in which a woman was left extremely vulnerable. In addition there was no actual sexual violence or exploitation perpetrated on screen therefore, in this instance, the Chairman was satisfied that the advertisment did not meet the threshold necessary to effect a breath of the Code of Ethics.

The Chairman ruled there were no grounds for the complaint to proceed

Perhaps if the chairman had actually READ MY FUCKING LETTER it would have made more sense. One of my favourite parts of this whole thing is where the covering letter finishes “Do not contact me if you have any further queries”. Very, very, very helpful.

I know there are some people who don’t get my rage about this, so let me put it in personal terms that perhaps might make more sense. When I was 14, I was assaulted in the bathroom of a night club toilet. Should I have been in that bar? No. Was it therefore my fault? No. Did I deserve it? No. It’s the last two Nos that have taken me more than ten years to accept. I was assaulted because some fuckhead decided that he would push me up against the wall and shove his tongue down my throat because he felt like I was cockblocking him with my friend. I was assaulted because he thought he was God’s gift to women, or as he so charmingly put it “I’m so horny right now I’d fuck anyone”. I wasn’t asking for it, but because I was somewhere that I shouldn’t have been, I blamed myself for so long. It meant I didn’t feel okay talking about it, it meant that when similar things happened to me in later years to a lesser degree I figured that I must have done something wrong, that it was my fault, that it was what I deserved. I didn’t. And the fact that this ALAC ad pushes that idea further, that ‘Lisa’ was out drinking and being bad and therefore brought this on herself makes me feel really sick. I have far too many friends who’ve had similar experiences, both sober and drunk, where they’re left thinking that it was something that they did that brought it on themselves for me to just sit back and let this campaign go on. I have fought for a long time to regain my sense of self, so I’m damn well going to fight for other women to never have to feel like this, and I’m going to continue to fight.

So I know that I have yet to write about my Big Day Out weekend, but I’m hoping I will do that tomorrow because quite frankly, I am too damn tired to do it right now, because it will be a lot of effort, and will require flickr links, and pillaging Lisa’s photos and all that sort of complicated stuff which I don’t have the brain capacity to do right now, but suffice to say that a good time was had by me.

Monday was of course Anniversary Day, and I’d realised the night before when I was starving that Anji still had my car, so I got her to come over and pick me up and we went to Elements for brunch. After dropping her off in Newtown and grocery shopping, I spent too much time fucking around at home reading the paper so that by the time I got my ass out to the south coast the sun was hiding and the wind had come up something fierce. Nevertheless, I plunged into the ocean and spent 15 minutes or so kicking and flailing frantically to keep my legs and hands from going numb while floating up and down on some pretty fiercesome waves. It was fucking fun, but ohmygod so fucking cold.

I can’t remember the rest of the day, which suggests that it wasn’t all that. I do know that there was spinach & cashew pesto involved somehow, and perhaps a steak, although perhaps that was the next day. And celery! I’ve never prepared celery before (because wow, it’s so hard topping and tailing it and vaguely stick-ifying it!) but I felt like a salty treat and thanks to Jane‘s article about better foods to crave during a hangover or PMS (that is the awesome thing about Jane – it’s not all “boiled egg, wholemeal toast, steamed lettuce” diet, it acknowledges that you’re a human being and will drink until you puke – and then gives tips for how to feel better in the morning) I knew that celery was salty.

The next day, I was supposed to go to work again, but after sitting on the edge of my bed for half an hour being unable to reach out and grab the clothes that were an arm’s length away because I just couldn’t, I had to give in and text my manager and tell her I needed a mental health day. In fact I ended up feeling really fucking nauseous anyway. I did have a counselling session at 1.30pm, so I kept that, and holy fuck, that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I found that I was talking without cohesion, and that really annoyed the narrator in me, because while I was throwing out a series of ideas about things that may have been linked, I didn’t feel like I was making the links clear, but I think she knew what I meant. We discussed the semantics of things again, with me not knowing the word that I thought I should use, and she declared it without a second of hesitation, and I was like aaaargh, and then I laughed at my body language, the tension in me, and we were laughing at the end at something completely inappropriate, but fuuuuuuck, it was a hard time. And part of me doesn’t even want to write about it here, even this obliquely, but i want to keep it as a record. And why do anything in private? If only I hadn’t left that mp3 player on the plane, I could podcast my counselling sessions. Heh. Wow, that’d be comfortable for all parties involved. And yeah, you’d get to hear me cry some more.

I was worried after my manager’s text about needing to talk the next day, but of course I shouldn’t have been, because when I told her what was going on, she was lovely (as of course a sane person would have realised anyway), and I said that I expected to be straighted out and normalised by the end of the week, but what I needed most was more work to do. As it happens, I seem to have actually achieved a lot this week, making many changes to the website, and taking on new projects, and also making my cow-orkers laugh quite a few times. Today I helped three people set bookmarks in their browser, which made me go “Really?” but I suppose not everyone has a tertiary qualifcation in Multimedia.

When I got home on Wednesday Smoo had cleaned the house and I nearly cried at that, but instead I decided to tackle the huge pile of dishes, and then scrub the bathroom. Briar helped me by drying, and it’s nice that she’s moving out so amicably to go and flat with her brother, and that while she’s taking her bookshelf which fits my books perfectly, she is leaving me her blender because she has another brand new one, and she knows how often i use it, so hurrah for that!

Yesterday I went for dinner with Karen and Anji at Siem Reap and we plotted Mum’s birthday present. We were going to send them to Martinborough for her birthday weekend, but we might send them up to the Wairarapa Food & Wine Festival instead on the 17th of March, except that it sounds like so much fun we’re looking at booking a house that can sleep five and tagging along on their romantic weekend. Heh.

Today after work, much to my disgust I went to the Loaded Hog to meet up with D&D, because Dave’s cow-orker was having goodbye drinks there or something. There was no sun so it was cold outside on the balconey, but coronas were two for $7.50, and when I only ordered two and was polite the bartender said that he loved me and that I was his favourite as it was crowded with stupid rude demanding people. Then when we went to Boulot Gabe welcomed us with happy new years and cheek kisses, and addressed me as “Pretty”. Awww. Bart and Blair joined us for a bit, and pizza was eaten and shit was talked. You know, the usual kind of Friday stuff. When I left I got a taxi with a green sign, and made sure that I repeated the name of the company – Amalgamated – to myself several times. I didn’t talk to the driver either, even though that felt somewhat unnatural, but it made me really fucking angry last week when I was telling my friend about how a taxi driver had groped my leg as I was paying right before Xmas, and the friend was like “were you flirting with him?” and I was like “NO!” but the point was that even if I had been, which I wasn’t, he still had absolutely no right to do that, and I wasn’t to know that I was putting myself in a bad situation when I thought I was taking the safe option home. My counsellor agreed with me that it’s okay if I decide to only use Combined from now on and call one if there’s not one on the rank, and I decided that as long as I try to make sure I don’t discriminate in other areas, the number of bad experiences that I have had with a particular kind of taxi driver means that am I well justified in trying to avoid them. That said, my cab tonight was only $8.70 when it’s usually like $13. Go Amalgamated! And if I remember to call them on 3888 4000, then I can call and complain should I need to as well. I know I am ranting, so I will return to my 90210 dvds now. But I will say that tonight I am in love with Cold War Kids’ “Hang me out to dry”, and if you have perhaps been living in a basement worried abotu an atomic bomb for the past 35 years, look up “dick in a box” on Youtube. That is, of course, mostly a suggestion for D&D who apparently actually read my journal and I never knew until tonight. Party.

xojo

So today I had my doctor’s appointment and I thought it might be weird to have to tell someone new about my mental history, but as it turns out she’d googled me and had the citalapram waiting on her desk when I walked in.

Okay, so that’s not strictly true (or even vaguely true at all), but she did give me a prescription without me having to cry (much), and I get a subsidised script for citalapram because I told her I can’t take fluoxetine. Well, technically I could but the bourbon necessary to deal with that would probably not fit in too well with my plan to not drink for a while. She took my blood pressure and it turns out that it’s now 140/100 – remember how it was 131/99 last time and THAT was high? Yeah. So tomorrow I’m going for fasting blood tests and pee tests and all sorts of fun things like that in case my kidneys are packing up instead of it just being stressed. Apparently there’s also something that can send stress into your body if it’s fucked up, so that could be interesting to find out if maybe it’s my physical health that’s fucked instead of my mental health. While going over my depression history before I filled in the depression survey and discovered I was circling the 3s on almost every list, I told her that I wasn’t in as bad a condition as I have been the past when I’ve signed up for the crazy pills, and she was like “you don’t have to justify yourself to me”. Well, she didn’t say that, but then we talked about early intervention and blah blah, and she also warned me of the likelihood of increased anxiety in the early stages (wahoo!) and said that I needed to be on the lookout for suicidal feelings. This is why the modern world is so fucked – in order to avoid getting to the stage where I feel like I might want to harm myself I need to take a drug that comes with the risk of increasing the wanting-to-harm-myself impulses. But hey, I dealt with that okay when it happened in March 2003, and I’m sure I can do it again with Tom on speed dial and KateH just five minutes drive away. Oh no wait…

Ha, sorry, I suppose this sort of thing is inappropriate for me to be making jokes about, but come on, it’s me – when have I ever been appropriate? I have all the shiny knowledge, pamphlets, plans to call the work-provided counsellor on Monday and most importantly the motivation to not be like this anymore that I need to defend myself, which makes me practically Harry Potter. And also some Danielle Steele books and movies of the ’80s teen genre to fill in the time until I feel okay again. Plus, thanks to Lisa, I have new craft projects to fill my time. I’m not huge with the wanting to talk to people right now, because it makes my chest hurt thinking about it, so I’ve decided she doesn’t qualify as a person. Instead, she’s an Awesomeness. Last night she brought over milk and cookies and paint, and we made art inspired by magazines. Her piece, which has been called Oh Penelope is fucking awesome. My art talent? Not so much so hot. So instead I created a quadtich which is a celebration of celibacy.

HPV

Chlamydia

Gonorrhea

Genital Herpes

That’s so Jane. Heh. And if I hadn’t used up all our gig of bandwidth this month watching Dick in a box over and over again, I could download the photos that Lisa kindly took for me of my art, since of course I’m still cameraless and have yet to suggest to Brad that he hire a panda costume to go over to Aro and get it for me. If it’s even there and not in the taxi. If I did leave it in the taxi, it’s probably fair payment for me yelling at the driver after Chrisana got out about how the taxi driver two nights before had fucking groped me. And about how fucking angry that made me. New year’s resolution: only take blue taxis from now on.

Today Lisa and I went to op shops in Newtown to find frames and then tried to eat at the Medditereaneaneanean Warehouse, but the bastard was still shut, so we settled for Hell at her house, and I made myself feel better about my own life by watching House of Carters in absolute shock and disgust and confusion about why the fuck they could possibly ever want to put their lives on TV. Their father is so clearly a child molestererer. And yes, I laughed my ass off at one of the daughter’s stories about how her mother told her she was goign to horse-riding camp but then had her kidnapped and sent to Fat Camp because she couldn’t make any money for the family as a fat kid. Oh yes, Karma and I still need to have a cuddle and make up at some stage. Then we watched more bad TV, and came here to watch Say Anything, because really, who doesn’t want John Cusack standing under their window with a ghetto blaster? Exactly!

Now at some stage I might try to go to sleep, but to be honest, I’m waiting for City Life, because haha! And besides, everyone needs a late night TV addiction while they’re waiting for the drugs to start working. I had 90210 in 2001 (not to mention September 11 coverage), and then Buffy in 2002. At least I’m keeping it home-styles now. But tomorrow I will endevour to get up before noon, so I can get these blood tests out of the way. Wahoo, needles!

Bo moved out today, so needless to say, I’m excessively sad and despondent and just so fucking lonely. I don’t care if she’s coming back in February, I still need her to be HERE NOW. I just need someone to listen to me and actually give a damn. Bleh self pity.

Stupid bloody notes from stupid bloody landladies. Let me get some sleep you vile creature.

PLEASE LET ME GET SOME MOTHERFUCKING SLEEP, CONSTRUCTION!

I hate boxing things up and packing and cleaning.

There’s restructuring and turmoil at work, and people’s personalities are really starting to fray.

I just wish I could have my old flatmates back – maybe ummm say Brad and Simon to balance out numbers for me and Bo rather than having to answer stupid people’s stupid questions. How many fucking times do I have to tell you that no, you can’t see the place until the 15th? Grr. Oh yeah, you do want to move in with me, by the way. Email me.

I emailed Shirley today, for like the first time in about three months, so I had to recap all the shit that I’ve been going through, and that’s never fun. On a similar vein, I’ve been keeping a list of things that I want to talk to Kalpana about, next time I can afford to go see her, and I’ve included on that list something that really, I very much would rather not talk about, but i guess if it still affects me then maybe actually I should. Ick. Maybe I will book my next appointment in for the afternoon after our staff Xmas Party so I can at least be drunk and it’ll be a little easier. Except then I’ll just end up bawling and I haven’t done that yet. She only has one box of tissues in her office. It’s way too sterile.

I had a job interview today and I think I impressed them a lot. I’m afraid the job environment could be very Foodstuffesque though, so I will be forced to think very very very long and hard about what my priorities are if they offer it to me (pay rent or feel like I’m going somewhere? pay rent or feel like I’m going somewhere?)

Tomorrow Ammy and I will be interviewing prospective flatmates HERE, rather than at the actual house. Personally, I think the most important thing is that the people are cool and we can get along, and if they don’t feel that way well then that tells you somehting.

Tonight I had emmediate and watched “Not One Less” instead of drinking vodka. It was a good movie. I have leftovers.

Friday 19; February, 1999

Simon’s friends Aaron and Don were over tonight all sitting around in the dining room staring at Sisi’s puter while I was online on mine. They were bugging me a little bit anyways, being crass and Aaron read over my shoulder the comments I was making to Jo and Matt about them. Anyways, their conversation turned to the recent trial in Italy where a judge ruled that a girl wasn’t raped because she was wearing jeans and “everyone knows that jeans are impossible to remove without help, so the sex was obviously consenting”. That verdict makes me angry enough as it is, but then Don and Aaron started making jokes about planning trips to Italy to take advantage of the situation, talking about cutting holes in a girl’s jeans so they could rape her without fear of consequence. I was speechless with rage. I snapped off the computer without bothering to say goodbye, and stalked out of the room.

I spent the next hour alternating between crying and shaking with rage. Sitting crosslegged on the end of my bed, I listened to Fiona Apple and watched my knuckles turn whiter and whiter. I had to use my right hand to make my left hand release my remote.

How dare they? Who the fuck do they think they are, joking about something like that? I mean, I know that political correctness gets taken too far sometimes, but their comments were quite possibly the most offensive things I have ever heard.

More than anything I wanted Simon to click, to come in and make sure I was okay, but he didn’t. This couldn’t have happened at a worse time, because after my conversation with Isobel this afternoon, I’d just started to understand and begin to come to terms with um stuff and now that’s been interfered with.

Oh god, I’m going to try a new tactic now – and put everything out in the open. Please handle what you’re going to read with care. I’m more fragile than I’d like you to think. And if you want to talk about this at all, please sign that guestbook or use the email address provided.

http://www.members.tripod.com/~safekeeping

Friday 5; Febuary, 1999
I finally rang the people at Farmers and they told me that my bed is being delivered tommorrow – YAY. So y’all can go and fill out the form in anticipation. I’ve only had like five offers so far, which is shocking. Come on, you all know you want me.

Hahahah sorry, excuse me. I’m severely hungover now (feb 6). Oh yeah, I guess I should explain how that came to be, huh?

Well I had a nothing day – I kept waking up in the morning, which sucked. Maybe it’s because my curtains are nearly transparent. Light is so annoying. I was just so dead all day long, and I fully did not feel like going out. However, I knew that if I didn’t leave the house, I would sit around moping. Kate didn’t wanna come pick me up, so she gave me garbled directions to her new house in Ponsonby. I took a bus into town, then a taxi from the Sheraton.

The taxi driver was really nice, and a bit into Astrology, which was amusing. He was telling me about his 16 year old step daughter, who’s a bit ‘fiesty’ at times because she’s a Libra. And I talked to him stacks about my course and stuff. He was choice. So yeah.

Kate and Theresa made me wait outside until the security lights to go on so that they could give me the proper tour of their house, including their two inch hot tub, yellow lounge, and assorted bedrooms. It’s a very cool house, and I’m quite jealous, only I do love this flat dearly too. We inflated two airbeds, and that was all the furniture that they had. But that’s okay, cos I got to drink (white – ick) wine from cool plastic cups.

A whole bunch of Theresa’s friends from the Shore and from Dunnivegas came over, and we all sat around for ages talking about about the most do-able cartoon characters and stuff. It was so very fifth form, because it was all girls. I remember I got warm fuzzies cos Kate told me that Theresa really liked me, and Marissa said she liked me too, so yay. I’m so easily pleased, man. Then everyone went to town except for me and Kate, so we went next door because the neighbours had invited us over.

There were three guys there, and two girls, all sitting around on the balconey, talking and drinking. I guess they were around 25. So we sat and yacked to them for a while. One of the chicks had a kid, and so we told her about Jess. They were really cool, except that I think Kate felt a bit ashamed of me because I just wanted to get horizontal (as I do when I drink) so I was lying on their balcony. We left when two of the guys and the chick with a baby disappeared to have a threesome. But the baby wasn’t there. I should probably just make that clear.

Back to Kate’s house we went. I climbed into her huge big clawfoot bathtub. It was like being in a massive egg, deliciously cool, and suprisingly comfortable. I could have stayed in there forever, if it wasn’t for the fact that I had to go and vomit. I think it was the mug of Absolut Citron that caused that. I’m not used to drinking quality vodka, you see.

So yeaaaaaah. Umm. I lay with my head on the toilet seat going “KATE! Make it stop! Make the room stop spinning”. She just laughed and laughed at me. I thought she didn’t have any hairties, but I woke up with my hair in a pony tail, so I guess she put my hair back for me. I was so ashamed that I wanted to die, but since she spent all last year in Dunedin, Excessive Drinking Capital of the World, she just laughed. I guess this was payback for her coma’ing in my bathtub when we were 15.

Then we ordered pizza. Of course, there was no phone in her flat so I had to ring it off my mobile, (021 21 27 920 hahaha I so wanna be rung) which took ages cos I had to punch in like our location and stuff. I don’t remember giving the guy our address, but I did tell him I had $20 and I wanted an apricot chicken pizza. He told me that he was going to send over a deal with garlic bread and chips and pepsi. Bless his little boots.

Kate and I laid down on one of the airbeds, and had a heart-to-heart which was very amusing. She told me the pizza wasn’t ever coming, so I thought that was a bit rude. Then I felt sick again, so I started throwing up in a jug that somehow was in my hands. I imagine that Kate, the good faerie that she is, had given it to me for that exact reason. So yeah, there’s me, sprawled across the floor, chucking up for all I’m worth. That’s when I notice there’s a stranger standing in the room.

It was the pizza boy, and he was laughing his head off at me. Through mouthfuls of bile, I imagine I laughed a little myself. I think I probably would also have sworn at him, and maybe said that I hated him. Poor lad, I’m sure he’s crushed. Not.

I guess I went to bed shortly after scoffing a lot of pizza, dragging one of the airbeds into a little room. I couldn’t untie the knot in my sleeping bag cord, so I stole Marrissa’s – and her pillow. I wanted to be comfy.