Well, CJS, your comments about connections between my fascination for Heathcliff and feelings for my brother left me reeling. This is a big topic, but I'll make a small start.
I was in my late 20s when I read "Wuthering Heights" for the first time. It made a huge impression on me. Until that time, I had never encountered a character with whom I'd identified so strongly (Catherine Earnshaw) or a perspective on romantic love that so matched my sensibilities (mirror image connection).
In my own experience, love is involuntary. It bypasses conscious processes and operates on very deep and basic levels. Of course, managing relationships requires a lot of conscious effort and skill, but the motivation to do so is either there or not. You can neither create it nor kill it.
It's a bit like McLelland's theory of work motivation: what gives you a buzz and drives you in life is innate. Your values, on the other hand, are shaped culturally and can change through life experience. When I encountered these ideas in the corporate world, a lot of things fell into place for me. I was putting myself under immense stress because what I wanted to do frequently conflicted with what I thought I should do.
Sooo, back to "Wuthering Heights". No credible character is all light. What gives me a buzz about Cathy AND Heathcliff are their self-reliance, resilience and passion. Their dark sides are vile -- selfishness, callousness, and arrogance -- but these are the very flip sides of their positives.
Like Cathy and Heathcliff, my brother and I effectively raised ourselves. Which means we have just as little patience as they did with sweet, pampered Linton types. Arguably, we haven't take our dark sides to quite their extremes. Then again, maybe we have.
We all have darkness in us. But we bond with others who share our shadows. It's only natural. I've learned to let myself enjoy my buzzes and duck a few truly loathed shoulds.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
PND pioneer
In the mid 70s, post-natal depression was not on the public radar. I'd never heard of it until I'd had it, and even then not straight away.
When my new baby was about three weeks old, I cracked up. I'd spent 72 hours awake, many of them hallucinating. It was like the "Easy Rider" cemetery scene without the acid, music and cool clothes. I went to my local GP and asked to be hospitalised. I wanted a huge horse dose of tranquilliser. I wanted to sleep. I was sure I could manage if I could just stop my head going for a while. But when I got to the local hospital, they decided I was a psycho case and they didn't have the facilities to cope. So they sent me to Royal Brisbane Hospital, aka "the biggest hospital in the southern hemisphere". Pretty soon I was signing a voluntary admission form to the Big Loony Bin (one of Queensland's ugliest over-sized icons). In retrospect, it was strangely hilarious, but I was in no mood for joking at the time. I was wheeled into a dark ward and woke up to find myself in a very unfunny farm.
I knew my head wasn't right but it certainly wasn't as bad as all of these women around me -- some ancient and demented, others young and nymphoid, others again just broken down by disadvantage. What a place. There was no peace, privacy or dignity. Shower cubicles had no doors. Dining tables and chairs were miniaturised. Patients screamed and sobbed all night. But I couldn't get out. I'd signed myself in and I had to wait until the next scheduled medical review to be cleared for release. Eventually I had my turn before the panel and some bearded bloke who looked like a caricature of Sigmund Freud asked me if I thought I was sane (or something to that effect -- I can't vouch for my objectivity at the time). He was flanked by women in tweed skirts and twin sets, and as I solemnly swore I was perfectly fine and fully cured, their faces kept morphing into baby pouts. Whether they could tell this or not, I don't know, but I was forced to stay another day in the locked ward, where I had more surreal conversations with doctors. They clearly thought I was suffering from long-term issues, not messed-up hormones.
For the next 12 months, I was treated by psychiatrists using only talk-talk tactics. One told me I was manic depressive. Another said I was a spoiled brat pretending to be sick to get attention. Not a day went past without my wanting to die. I was a serious danger to myself and my little boy, but somehow I managed to survive. And one day I told my shrink that I'd decided I needed to get out of the house and get a job. "Who'll look after the baby?" he asked. "My husband will," I told him. The doctor accused me of being selfish and unnatural. I was so furious with him, that I stormed out determined to sort myself out on my own.
I've read somewhere that depression is anger at oneself, so redirecting the anger externally is actually therapeutic. That bastard shrink did me a favour, ultimately. To this day, though, I remain appalled at his stupid, sexist, high-risk approach. I got better and raised two children with whom I have great relationships. No thanks to the system.
When my new baby was about three weeks old, I cracked up. I'd spent 72 hours awake, many of them hallucinating. It was like the "Easy Rider" cemetery scene without the acid, music and cool clothes. I went to my local GP and asked to be hospitalised. I wanted a huge horse dose of tranquilliser. I wanted to sleep. I was sure I could manage if I could just stop my head going for a while. But when I got to the local hospital, they decided I was a psycho case and they didn't have the facilities to cope. So they sent me to Royal Brisbane Hospital, aka "the biggest hospital in the southern hemisphere". Pretty soon I was signing a voluntary admission form to the Big Loony Bin (one of Queensland's ugliest over-sized icons). In retrospect, it was strangely hilarious, but I was in no mood for joking at the time. I was wheeled into a dark ward and woke up to find myself in a very unfunny farm.
I knew my head wasn't right but it certainly wasn't as bad as all of these women around me -- some ancient and demented, others young and nymphoid, others again just broken down by disadvantage. What a place. There was no peace, privacy or dignity. Shower cubicles had no doors. Dining tables and chairs were miniaturised. Patients screamed and sobbed all night. But I couldn't get out. I'd signed myself in and I had to wait until the next scheduled medical review to be cleared for release. Eventually I had my turn before the panel and some bearded bloke who looked like a caricature of Sigmund Freud asked me if I thought I was sane (or something to that effect -- I can't vouch for my objectivity at the time). He was flanked by women in tweed skirts and twin sets, and as I solemnly swore I was perfectly fine and fully cured, their faces kept morphing into baby pouts. Whether they could tell this or not, I don't know, but I was forced to stay another day in the locked ward, where I had more surreal conversations with doctors. They clearly thought I was suffering from long-term issues, not messed-up hormones.
For the next 12 months, I was treated by psychiatrists using only talk-talk tactics. One told me I was manic depressive. Another said I was a spoiled brat pretending to be sick to get attention. Not a day went past without my wanting to die. I was a serious danger to myself and my little boy, but somehow I managed to survive. And one day I told my shrink that I'd decided I needed to get out of the house and get a job. "Who'll look after the baby?" he asked. "My husband will," I told him. The doctor accused me of being selfish and unnatural. I was so furious with him, that I stormed out determined to sort myself out on my own.
I've read somewhere that depression is anger at oneself, so redirecting the anger externally is actually therapeutic. That bastard shrink did me a favour, ultimately. To this day, though, I remain appalled at his stupid, sexist, high-risk approach. I got better and raised two children with whom I have great relationships. No thanks to the system.
Friday, April 2, 2010
I hate the seventies
What a disastrous decade that was. There's a tendency among Gen Xers to romanticise this time, just as every generation does of its childhood era. But let me tell you: very few people in my neck of the woods were interested or able to taste the few cultural highlights (like Danish teak furniture, Marimekko fabrics, new wave music and The Female Eunuch). Most people opted for ugly mission brown and burnt orange over-stuffed lounges, macrame wall hangings, ABBA and Charlie's Angels. Men twisted feminist ideas into self-serving crap: having sex is like having a coffee, no big deal, why should you be jealous, don't be so uptight. Women were herded into frizzing their hair and dressing like earth mothers or Swedish vamps.
All that stuff on TV about Woodstock and free love made suburban dads restless. Mine started wearing body shirts and growing sideburns. Then he left mum for the neighbour's wife, so I had to do my Senior exams with an abscess pounding in one ear and mum pummelling the other: if you ever have an affair with a married man, I'll never talk to you again. (Like that was supposed to deter me?)
Somehow I managed to do so well in my exams that I could have easily got into Law or some other lucrative career path. Instead I chose art college and found myself drawing plaster casts of nude figures (life modelling was illegal back then in Queensland!) and arranging bits of dowel on planks (they called it 3D studies). Disillusioned, I dropped out and applied to a college in Toowoomba which offered the first film and TV course in Australia and the chance to study visual and performing arts at the same time. It was the Whitlam era. All the lecturers were American expats, failed actors and painters who boasted about their "busts" for civil rights protests and recreational drug use. They didn't believe in structured classes or passing value judgements on students' work. No one could fail: the only assessments were "complete" or "incomplete". Toowoomba was a very odd location for such an experiment. In those days it was full of rich pastoralists cruising the streets in Rolls Royces and Bentleys with windscreen stickers complaining about Whitlam's abolition of the super-phosphate bounty. People would stop, wind down their windows, remove their sunglasses and stare at the weird college students. Forced by economics and logistics to hitchhike to college each day, I heard the line every second day: "Can I ask you a personal question? Are you an advocate of free love?" Puke.
I fought with the college director, an evil egotist who'd once appeared in "The Cruel Sea" with Robert Mitchum and had been married at one stage to Agnes Morehead (of TV's "Bewitched" Fame). I'd been his pet to begin with, but later I began to object to his power games. He cast us all in his personal dramatisation of Walt Whitman's poetry. Men could wear jeans and T shirts, but women were forced to wear body stockings. I thought it was exploitative. He thought I was an uptight bitch. Even more disillusioned, I dropped out again and got pregnant (accidentally on purpose) to a man I'd married so I could get tertiary allowance.
Naively I thought that looking after a baby would be like caring for a cat. A nature child at heart, I didn't bother going to classes or reading books. I fervently believed everything would just click into place. It didn't.
To be continued...
All that stuff on TV about Woodstock and free love made suburban dads restless. Mine started wearing body shirts and growing sideburns. Then he left mum for the neighbour's wife, so I had to do my Senior exams with an abscess pounding in one ear and mum pummelling the other: if you ever have an affair with a married man, I'll never talk to you again. (Like that was supposed to deter me?)
Somehow I managed to do so well in my exams that I could have easily got into Law or some other lucrative career path. Instead I chose art college and found myself drawing plaster casts of nude figures (life modelling was illegal back then in Queensland!) and arranging bits of dowel on planks (they called it 3D studies). Disillusioned, I dropped out and applied to a college in Toowoomba which offered the first film and TV course in Australia and the chance to study visual and performing arts at the same time. It was the Whitlam era. All the lecturers were American expats, failed actors and painters who boasted about their "busts" for civil rights protests and recreational drug use. They didn't believe in structured classes or passing value judgements on students' work. No one could fail: the only assessments were "complete" or "incomplete". Toowoomba was a very odd location for such an experiment. In those days it was full of rich pastoralists cruising the streets in Rolls Royces and Bentleys with windscreen stickers complaining about Whitlam's abolition of the super-phosphate bounty. People would stop, wind down their windows, remove their sunglasses and stare at the weird college students. Forced by economics and logistics to hitchhike to college each day, I heard the line every second day: "Can I ask you a personal question? Are you an advocate of free love?" Puke.
I fought with the college director, an evil egotist who'd once appeared in "The Cruel Sea" with Robert Mitchum and had been married at one stage to Agnes Morehead (of TV's "Bewitched" Fame). I'd been his pet to begin with, but later I began to object to his power games. He cast us all in his personal dramatisation of Walt Whitman's poetry. Men could wear jeans and T shirts, but women were forced to wear body stockings. I thought it was exploitative. He thought I was an uptight bitch. Even more disillusioned, I dropped out again and got pregnant (accidentally on purpose) to a man I'd married so I could get tertiary allowance.
Naively I thought that looking after a baby would be like caring for a cat. A nature child at heart, I didn't bother going to classes or reading books. I fervently believed everything would just click into place. It didn't.
To be continued...
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Literature or what?
Blurt, blurt, blurt--that's what blogging's about. Forget the composition. Never mind the quality of expression or idea. Just spew. I'm not good at it, I know. My son, on the other hand, is an enthusiastic and accomplished proponent. He's prolific, natural, entertaining. Must be a generational thing. Anyway, stung by anonymous criticisms, let me have another stab at the business. I've had a few drinks (OK, many drinks) and I can't sleep. Too many things are on my mind.
Number one: what makes one book literary, prize-worthy, collectable, memorable, treasured, while another is at most amusing, diverting? I've recently finished reading two books by Orhan Pamuk--The Museum of Innocence and Istanbul: Memories and the City. I was drawn to them because I'll be visiting Istanbul soon and I read an intriguing review in The Age (Melbourne's metro broadsheet). I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I half suspected that Pamuk's recent Nobel Prize for Literature was more about ideological barrows (pushing niche nobility) than absolute merit. But I was truly humbled by what I discovered.
A writer friend of mine thinks that it's writing style that distinguishes literature from pulp (gross exaggeration but this is a blog after all). But if that's so, translations will always fall short of the mark. And even allowing for the translation gap, I can't say I've been enchanted by Pamuk's sentence and chapter construction. On the other hand, I've been deeply and mysteriously affected by his canvas craft. Interesting. He has something to say, and he does it slowly, deliberately, unbloggingly. Long live the blurt-free form.
Secondly, I had lunch today with one of my longest-standing and most controversial friends. We've had our ups and downs to say the least, including five years or so when I classed her as enemy. Long story. But life is short. If you expect people to be perfect, you'll soon be alone. I have many gripes with this woman, but also many commonalities. She's another bad girl, larger than life, flawed but fabulous.
The connecting thought? On YouTube, I heard Pamuk talking about how novels taught him about the value of individual choice versus cultural conformity. Relationships are a case in point. Accept the whole package or move on. Neat details don't necessarily add up to worthwhile bundles.
Number one: what makes one book literary, prize-worthy, collectable, memorable, treasured, while another is at most amusing, diverting? I've recently finished reading two books by Orhan Pamuk--The Museum of Innocence and Istanbul: Memories and the City. I was drawn to them because I'll be visiting Istanbul soon and I read an intriguing review in The Age (Melbourne's metro broadsheet). I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I half suspected that Pamuk's recent Nobel Prize for Literature was more about ideological barrows (pushing niche nobility) than absolute merit. But I was truly humbled by what I discovered.
A writer friend of mine thinks that it's writing style that distinguishes literature from pulp (gross exaggeration but this is a blog after all). But if that's so, translations will always fall short of the mark. And even allowing for the translation gap, I can't say I've been enchanted by Pamuk's sentence and chapter construction. On the other hand, I've been deeply and mysteriously affected by his canvas craft. Interesting. He has something to say, and he does it slowly, deliberately, unbloggingly. Long live the blurt-free form.
Secondly, I had lunch today with one of my longest-standing and most controversial friends. We've had our ups and downs to say the least, including five years or so when I classed her as enemy. Long story. But life is short. If you expect people to be perfect, you'll soon be alone. I have many gripes with this woman, but also many commonalities. She's another bad girl, larger than life, flawed but fabulous.
The connecting thought? On YouTube, I heard Pamuk talking about how novels taught him about the value of individual choice versus cultural conformity. Relationships are a case in point. Accept the whole package or move on. Neat details don't necessarily add up to worthwhile bundles.
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