qv-charlottetheharlot-blog

[qv-charlottetheharlot-blog]

Grief is not very different from illness: in the impetus of its fire it does not recognise lords, it does not fear colleagues, it does not respect or spare anyone, not even itself.

Eleanor of Aquitaine (1193)

On the weekend, I had the privilege of seeing Carly Findlay talk at the inaugural Fitzroy Writers Festival. And she said that if you want to be a writer, then you have to write.

My dream is to be a writer. My dream at the moment, anyway. My dreams have grown and changed a lot over the last year, and I have decided now that I have to let a little control go. But, should all work out according to my current plan, once day I will be writing children’s books.

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Carly is putting together a new book. It is about Growing Up Disabled in Australia. My friend told me about it. I have decided that I will be submitting to this anthology, with the hope of being published. I have a lot to say about mental health, and chronic mental illness. My parents and I will be giving statements at the Royal Commission into Mental Health.

I was talking about my history with the system with my friend, and I realised exactly how shocking it all is. My favourite story is the one where I was 17: I was living with my parents, attending school as best I could, and we �� my family and I – were becoming desperate for help. Well, they were; I think I was too sick to see a future at that point. But I remember the moment that after my hour initial appointment with Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, they said they could not take me on. I was too high risk for even the public system. And no adult service would touch me, because they are not insured for under 18s. And so, at one of my sickest points, I was left to get sicker. I can’t imagine what my parents had to go through, watching that spiral. That was the year I started getting stitches for my cuts.

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Carly said that a writer should write. That even if it is for 10 minutes a day, a writer should write. I am writing assignments, but they are not mine. I would like to have my own writing that I can keep. I would like to watch myself develop without watching the marks on my assignments.

I have started watching documentaries about horrific things that occurred in history – not just the murder shows – ones about Nazis and Hitler and epidemics and pandemics and natural disasters and the Soviet Union and even the stock market crash of 1929. They comfort me. I’m not sure why the comfort me, but right now I feel that sometimes I don’t need to understand things. If they are working, they are working. And when my brain is ready to start exploring why, I will start exploring why.

I have learnt a lot from my lapse last year. And the most important thing I learnt is that life laughs in the face of your control. Life does not care, my mental illness does not care, and, unfortunately, many people do not care, or care to understand.

There are few statements that have stuck in my head so strongly, but I do not think I will ever forget being told that I was a liability to yourself and others. A liability.

Liability: a person or thing whose presence or behaviour is likely to put one at a disadvantage.

 I am not a liability. I am strong, and I am brave, and I will not let them tell me otherwise. A laughable duty of care when you leave crying and they do not contact you. Laughable except for how I was not okay, and they did not care.

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quintessentially yours, 

ellie <3