SHAMPOO IS BETTER!

Last week, I went for a run. Because I’m fit. As I was jogging through Hyde Park, I noticed a man sprawled on a bench, seemingly unconscious.

“Junkie,” I thought, and continued running. However, as I got closer, I noticed he was reasonably well-dressed and clean-shaven. His head was thrown back and his mouth hung open. Like a corpse. As I jogged past, he did not move at all. When I got to the end of the park, I turned around to look once more. The man still hadn’t moved. I hovered for a few seconds, then a possum ran in front of me and I chased him because I love the possums in Hyde Park. They make me feel like a bush ranger. I ran home, then ate a can of corn and played Diddy Kong Racing. After all,  I am a grown up.

The next day, the man was gone. I wondered whether he’d simply woken up, or been gently pushed into Sydney harbour by the city council. Had I run past a dead body and not noticed/cared? It was entirely possible. I live in Darlinghurst. I pass smacked-out junkies more often than I buy toilet paper. I have frequently seen homeless people brawling, interrupted doorway poops, witnessed various acts of vandalism, and been a spectator to more than a few domestic disputes. On top of this, I get asked for money every time I leave my house. But enough about the Red Cross, because the junkies are pretty annoying too.

Sometimes, I’ll see a couple fighting, and the dude will push or hit his lady around a little. I’ll think, “How could he!” but my default reaction in these situations is to always look the other way. Sure, I’m a post-feminist/alkaline or whatever (I was born under the sign of Taurus), but I’m not prepared to get glassed in the face to save one of my sisters.

Am I a bad person?

Don’t answer that.

I’ve been on the other side of the spectrum too. I was once attacked while waiting for the bus, because I looked at a person. Nobody seemed to mind much. And I once tried to fight someone on York Street, which attracted a few stares, but not so much as a comment from passers-by.

Have we become desensitised? Or are we just tougher?

I don’t know, I’m from the Hills. We used to kill bees when we were bored.

• peeling other people’s sunburnt skin
• drinking
• licking the salt off rice crackers
• putting things in the bin
• reading books about shipwrecks
• loling
• getting up during the night to make sure the stove is turned off

I think that’s all. Sometimes I also write limericks using rude words. I guess I’m just a fun/crazy gal!

pingin

Since I have been experiencing “visual disturbances” lately, I went to a clinic in the city to have a retinal examination today. This involved not wearing make up to work, which made everyone ask if I was alright, then having to hike up a big hill to sit in a waiting room for an hour and a half with a lot of old people who looked like they died some time ago. The lady at the desk made me fill out lots of forms that asked me to estimate how many alcoholic beverages I consume in an average week and other impossible questions, then I waited some more.

A girl called Julia anaesthetised my eyeballs and made my tears yellow, then she poked them to check my eyeball pressure or something. After that, she put the dilating drops in my eyes and led me to a smaller, more crowded waiting room that could have passed for a methadone clinic because everyone there was glassy-eyed and staring at the wall because we could not see properly. An asian surgeon looked at my eyeballs with a magnifying glass, which he accidentally dropped onto my crotch and then went to retrieve and then awkwardly stopped himself. Then a fat lady took photos of my eyeballs and yelled at me for blinking every time the camera flashed. By this stage, I looked like I had taken a lot of pills, except I wasn’t smiling all that much.

The doctor then said I have “very healthy eyes” and dictated a letter to my father using his dictaphone machine, while I looked at myself in a hand mirror. Then he said “if your car won’t start, there’s a problem with its engine. Maybe you just need to take better care of yourself.” And I said, “I do, I love myself.” And he said, “Okay, whatever.” I don’t think he was much of a people-person, because in his office he had 5 pictures of his dogs and 1 picture of his children.

I was having drinks with an old friend when the subject of my particularly heinous ex came up.

“You need to be smarter,” he advised as I wrapped up the latest update.

“Fuck off,” I replied. “It’s not as if these guys come with a big tag saying DOUCHEBAG. You can’t pick them.”

“Yes, you can,” he insisted. “Well I can, anyway.”

All men think this. They have absolute faith in their ability to spot an arsehole, presumably because they’ve been one themselves at some stage.

“Go on,” I said.

“Okay. So if a guy has a popped collar – he’s a douchebag. And if he’s got the southern cross tattooed anywhere on his body, I won’t even speak to him. Also, bleached hair is a huge indicator of fuckwittage.”

“But my ex didn’t have any of that stuff,” I protested. “Then again, he wasn’t a conventional douchebag. He was actually…evil.”

“Yeah, yeah, all men are scum,” my friend said, and waved his hand dismissively.

I opened my mouth to argue, but found myself at a familiar loss. I’d already had this conversation with various people over the past few months – with both men and women – but I was still struggling to find a way to explain exactly what went on in my relationship.

In a nutshell: I chose to be with an emotionally abusive, lying, manipulative cunt, for nearly two years.

Did I know it at the time? Yes. Was I able to walk away from the relationship? No. How did it actually happen? I’m not sure.

I’m a reasonably well-balanced individual. I’m relatively smart. And ordinarily, I’ve got a pretty healthy sense of self-esteem. But over the years I was with this guy, he took all the parts of my brain that made me normal and systematically destroyed them. By the second year, I was a mess. I couldn’t concentrate at work, I didn’t sleep, I was 8kg below my normal weight, I took too many drugs, I drank too much, I had no interest in my friends, and I lived in a perpetual state of fear and intense anxiety.

It started slowly… A few comments about my weight, my make up, my dress sense. Some condescending remarks about my work or my writing or my professional reputation. Over time, that developed into plain insults, combined with accusations of cheating, irrational jealousy, and constant arguments. He made a habit of pointing out everything I did wrong (and I was always doing something wrong.) He told me that my friends were conspiring against me and I should cut them out of my life. He read my emails and went through my things. He joined forums to follow my online interactions. He forbade me from talking to some of my male friends. He ranted and raved and screamed until I learned not to complain about anything. He told me I was paranoid. He told me I was stupid. He told me I was inappropriate. He told me I was a slut. He yelled at me when I cried. He said he wanted to punch me in the face. He threatened to kill my family.

And he cheated. Oh yes, he cheated, a thousand times. And for an obscene period of time, he had two serious girlfriends concurrently.

“Why did you keep going back to him?” is the question everyone asks.

Quite simply, I was terrified of not having him because he had rebuilt every aspect of my life to revolve around him. There was just nothing left. I had alienated most of my friends, and my relationship with my parents had become strained because I was so agitated all the time or trying to hide the fact that I was fucked up. My work, my music, my writing, my social life, and everything else I enjoyed had somehow come to involve him to such a degree that I couldn’t do any of those things without him. He made my life miserable, but I needed him desperately because I had come to depend on him for almost everything. I had no coping skills left and having someone else control my life was somehow comforting, even if they were the one who made the mess in the first place. He would regularly orchestrate situations that he knew would devastate me, then swoop in at the last minute to fix things as I floundered. Eventually, he was all I had.

I suffered most of this in silence. I never really told anyone what was happening, because I knew what their answer would be, and I knew I couldn’t leave him. Plus, I was just plain embarrassed. There was simply no point in having that discussion.

But of course, it ended eventually. I uncovered a series of transgressions so major that even I couldn’t talk myself into believing his bullshit anymore. I arranged a meeting, and then I threw myself at him, kicking and screaming, hitting and biting. He didn’t feel it, but he left me alone after that.

Once the adrenaline of that final episode wore off, I fell into a bit of a slump. I was still reeling from everything that had happened, but everyone had already heard the story and was bored with it. I looked okay, so everyone assumed I was. My job kept me busy and functional during the day, but most nights I drank until I passed out. I felt completely traumatised. I’d always known my relationship contained some untruth, but discovering the scale of the lies was devastating. It felt like an episode of Scooby Doo, when the villain peels back his mask and you realise you had completely mistaken his identity altogether. I agonised over how I was supposed to prevent a situation like that from developing again, when I wasn’t really sure how I’d let it happen in the first place. And at the end of the day, I was simply floored by the fact that a human being could be so completely, purely, remorselessly awful. So I drank until I couldn’t maintain a string of logic, I turned off my phone, and I didn’t leave my house unless I absolutely had to. I simply needed to sit, alone, and try to remember who I was. Gradually the shock wore off and I remembered how to be a normal person, but the anger never really faded. I realised that up until that point in my life, I’d never actually hated anyone. I say that I hate things or people all the time, but this was red-hot and bigger than me. I was afraid it would make me do something terrible. I’m still afraid of that.

I think about him less now, but when I do, it’s always in fantasy: I see him drunk, stumbling around the city one night. He trips and staggers in front of a bus. It crushes him instantly. His body breaks and he’s thrown to the side of the road. He lies there, a tangle of gore and smashed limbs. He can’t speak, but he can hear. And he needs an ambulance, fast. I walk over, kneel next to him, and look into his eyes. “You worthless fuck,” I say and spit in his face, then walk away.

The best part of every episode of Gossip Girl is the show’s clever and unexpected use of irony.

For example, after a lifetime of meticulous avoidance of rumoured carcinogens, Serena develops bowel cancer and shits blood which is gross and all her friends pretend they don’t know her.

Dad: What happened?

Mum: Well her children from her previous marriage are always torn between spending Christmas day at Margaret’s house, or spending it with their dad and his new wife. This year, they’ve all been fighting about it, and now all this nastiness has come out of the woodwork and it looks like they might not have Christmas lunch at all.

Me: YAWN.

Dad: Can they really not reach an agreement this year?

Mum: I don’t think they will, no. The daughter-in-law is being extremely defensive and firing up at everything Margaret says. Every time they try to have a conversation, it descends into bickering.

Dad: It is a pity. But maybe these issues need to be dealt with before the family can move on? Maybe it’s a good thing?

Mum: Yeah, I guess even normal families have to compromise at Christmas time. I mean, we always have to drive up to Newcastle to see your dad, and he hasn’t come down here in more than five years because he simply refuses to make the drive. Then we have to meet him at some awful club because he won’t cook lunch for us.

Dad: What? Dad made lunch for us on Christmas Day three years ago!

Mum: Yeah but it was woeful. A barbequed chicken and some salads.

Dad: Well is Christmas about the food you eat or the people you eat it with?

Me: Guys, Christmas is about getting drunk and admitting how you really feel about people. It’s about starting fights over repressed grudges and having painfully awkward public arguments in front of all your other family members, who scramble like mad to get out of the firing line as you attempt to embroil everyone else in your petty disputes. I’m glad to see you two are already getting into the swing of things.

Mum: Oh shut up, Annik.

Me: That’s the spirit!

Bill first came into my life when he commented on my previous post regarding Tim Allen. Since then I have been inspired by Bill’s dedication and heart-felt contributions to the Tim Allen cause. I think you will all agree that Bill is a pioneer, nay, an evangelist, and a man worthy of your respect, attention and admiration.

Over to you, Bill.

________________________________________________________________________________________

The year was 1997. There were a lot of drugs. A lot of ecstasy tablets… and a lot of entertainment.

In 1997, the motion picture For Richer or Poorer was storming into theaters. The English Patient was winning Best Picture. And Tim Allen was winning the People’s Choice Award for Best Male Television Performer.  Even more importantly maybe, Tim Allen was winning the hearts of millions.

But as much as it pains me to say it, this is not a post about Tim Allen. In fact it’s not even about my love of Tim Allen.  I could go on and on about my connection to Tim. About the fact that, as an orphan child, I truly looked up to Tim and Jill as my “tv parents.”  But I think, on some level, that’s something we all do with Tim Allen.  There’s something so deeply unique, yet commonplace about the man, that we can’t help but subjectify the experience, the ecstasy, that only a performer of Tim’s caliber can induce. But as deeply as it hurts, I know that Tim Allen is not someone who we can take in our arms and never let go. He was meant to be shared with the world. I will always treasure the moments of solitude I’ve had, psychic connections you could say, with Mr. Allen. But I fear that expounding on the subject may only serve to mitigate your own experiences, dear reader. And if there’s one thing I don’t want to do, it’s soil your personal connection with Tim Allen.

So instead, this post is about my lifelong journey, my dharma, of spreading Tim’s Warmth with all who care to bask and revel in it.

Naturally, when Annik asked me to do a guest post on her blog, my first thought (as it usually is) was- How can I use this to help Tim Allen?  Recently my friend, and Timallenzone.org co-founder, Andrew Kane, said to me:  ”You’ve done enough for Tim Allen, Bill. Isn’t it time you got the spotlight for a little bit?”

And maybe it is.  See, in 1997, a small group (two, to be exact) of avid fans got together with one goal– to utilize the World Wide Web in a way that had only been fantasized about before– as an entertainment mecca. An amalgamation of news, media, and fanboy love. Since then, a lot of people have taken timallenzone.org’s lead, and such websites have become common place. But at the time, everyone thought they were crazy.

Benjamin Smith and Andrew Kane pooled their resources, and launched a website on the now defunct Geocities (rip). The site was a tribute to the greatest entertainer of all time– and, as history has proven, one of the most timeless icons of the last few generations– Tim Allen.

I was still a relative child at the time. And, while I watched Home Improvement religiously, and while my heart swelled with love and pride for the Tool Man, I didn’t even know what it meant to be a true fan. Not until Ben and Andrew found me, and set me free.

In 2003, I was working at an apple orchard in Vermont. But even there, on those peaceful plains strewn with sun-ripe fruit, I found myself magnetically attracted to my computer. You see, by then, Home improvement was off the air. There were no megaplexes nearby, and thus no way for me to see the latest Tim Allen blockbuster. The internet was my only true connection to my hero, Tim Allen. I moderated a lot of messageboards, I spent a lot of time in chat rooms. And yes, unfortunately, I did a lot of cocaine powder. (Funnily, that addiction, and my subsequent recovery, only made me feel more connected to Tim. Tim’s been there. He’s fallen from great heights, and lifted himself back up again. As Tim did, so did I.) My cocaine-fueled scouring of Tim Allen internet sites eventually led me to Andrew and Ben’s magnificient, “Unofficial Tim Allen Fan Zone.”

Two years and several rehabs later, I became the interim webmaster for Tim Allen Zone.org. A dream come true, to say the least.

What we lack in content, we more than make up for in heart. We’ve received critical feedback about our spotty news feed (which I should probably update) as well as our lack of any functioning message board. But message board or not, there’s no denying that Timallenzone.org is a community. A real community.

And I guess what I’m asking you is to become a part of that community.  We’re adding new stuff all the time. We recently added a Fan Art/Fan Fiction section, which I urge you to check out. There’s some great stuff there. Also, by teaming up with the folks at Beards Encouraged, we’ve managed to bring our little-website-that-could into the 21st century. We now feature original Youtube tributes,  a Facebook Fan Page, a Twitter Feed… even our own blog. But no matter how high-tech we get, no matter how high our page-counter soars, we’ll never forget who we are, where we came from, or why we’re here.

We’re here for one man who taught us all how to laugh and love. We’re here because of Tim Allen. Remember that. I know I will.

With love,

Bill Raleigh

When I was in primary school, we were visited once a year by the Life Education Australia van. This was a caravan manned by chirpy women who used a giraffe puppet (Healthy Harold) and a nude mannequin (Tammy) to educate third graders on drugs and general health. I didn’t care much for Harold, but I was fascinated by Tammy and her womanly figure, which I would never develop. Her plastic skin had been shaven away on one side, exposing her plastic internal organs. I wanted to reach out and stroke her plastic liver, then tweak her plastic nipple. I was shy though.

Healthy Harold taught us about the food pyramid and advised us to exercise regularly. He then launched into an anti-drug tirade and touched on the dangers of peer pressure as well as the legal and socio-economic factors involved with drug abuse and their long-term effects on society. I spent these lessons staring at the caravan ceiling, which was covered in tiny fake stars, and thinking about my silk worms, but the message was so strong, it seeped completely into my eight year old brain anyway. If anyone had offered me a cigarette, I would have urinated on their entire packet and rang the police immediately. If thirty of my classmates had stood in a circle and chanted “CHUG, CHUG, CHUG,” I would have tipped my bottle of beer down the nearest drain and raised my face to the sky, arms outstretched, before calling out the twelve steps and giving glory to God. I was completely staunch in my resolve: I would never drink or smoke. I would certainly never take drugs. I would be healthy. I would be happy. I would be like Harold.

Four years later, my great-grandmother died. She was ninety-seven years old, and had been in a nursing home for six months. I remembered the day she was put into the nursing home, because my father was very tense and simply told me, “She fell over.” But through eavesdropping on my mother’s phone conversations, I was able to piece together all the details: Nan had gotten out of bed during the night to get a glass of water, then she had fallen over on her way back from the kitchen, breaking her hip and smashing her head against the floor, knocking herself out. Unable to get back up after she regained consciousness, she simply remained on the floor and waited for somebody to find her. By the time my grandfather arrived in the morning to take her to church, she had ripped up half the carpet in her living room in an attempt to keep herself warm throughout the night. She had torn up her hands doing this, and managed to cut her arms on broken glass. She had also shat herself and was crying with embarrassment.

This single agonising, undignified event completely horrified me. “Why couldn’t she get back up again?” I asked my mother, interrupting her phone call.

“She’s just too old,” Mum explained, “The body starts to give up and stop working after a while.”

This distressed me deeply. The idea that I could one day find myself unable to walk or wipe my own arse was the most depressing thing I had ever contemplated. And the thought of my great-grandmother lying amongst broken glass on her kitchen floor, nursing a smashed hip and a bruised face, scratching at the carpet and defecating on her own muumuu was too awful for my pre-pubescent brain to handle. In that moment, I vowed that I would die the day after my 70th birthday. Or even sooner, if possible. I would never be found covered in my own shit and lying broken on the floor, because I simply wouldn’t live that long. I would die while I still had dignity and presence of mind. Hopefully I would still have my figure too.

And so, when my time came, I said “Yes!” to cigarettes. I said yes to alcohol and pot and pills and anything else that crossed my path. I still work out and eat properly and moisturise and sleep 8 hours every night, because I am vain, but I’m not going to make any effort to extend my life beyond the ability to control my own bladder. If being healthy means dying in a puddle of my own excrement with broken hips, then Harold can eat my arse.

Editor’s note: Any teachers or parents who are interested in having Annik speak at their children’s schools can send an expression of interest via email to education [at] annikskelton.com

“Look at those wizzies!” Fred said, fingering my gums. “We need to take those babies out asap!”

“Are you sure?” I asked, feeling sick.

“Of course I’m sure,” Fred said, offended. “I’ve been a dentist for twenty goddamn years. Don’t worry, they’ll put you under before they get started.”

I relaxed immediately. Several painful things had happened to me under local anesthetic, so I was apprehensive of staying awake during any sort of medical procedure and wanted to be put under for most things, including having my legs waxed. However, up until now, nobody had ever offered me a general anesthetic, so I felt very excited. Furthermore, I would likely be prescribed some sweet pain killers to cope with the post-op agony. My love affair with pharmaceuticals stretched back to infancy, and I had developed quite a strong tolerance for most over-the-counter medications by the time I reached adolescence. An opportunity to legitimately obtain some harder gear was way too good to pass up.

“Will there be panadeine forte or similar involved in this?” I asked Fred, trying to keep my voice casual.

“Hell yes,” he replied. “Do you have any idea how deep your wisdom teeth grow?”

I waved him away and sat back in the chair, already planning how this tooth extraction surgery would pan out. I would get to go to hospital for the first time ever, and the novelty of this would be so intense that it would outweigh any negative aspects of having my teeth wrenched from my head. After the operation, I would stay at my parents’ house, where I would lie on the lounge and watch Dawson’s Creek for a week. Of course, this didn’t differ very much at all from my regular life, except that now I would be doing it while I was fucked up on codeine. Further, I would have my mother and father around to wait on me. It would be like a holiday that didn’t cost any money, just teeth.

The big day arrived and my mother drove me to the hospital in the morning. After I registered with reception, I was taken into a consultation room and instructed to remove all my jewellery and hair accessories.

“I’m having my mouth operated on, not my pony tail,” I told the nurse.

“This is standard procedure,” she replied defensively. “Now, how much do you weigh?”

“That’s a little personal,” I protested.

“We need to know your weight in order to figure out how much anesthetic to give you,” she explained.

“Oh. In that case, put me down for 80kg.”

After I left the consultation room, I was shown into a pre-op area and given a gown to change into. My mother paced around the room, looking anxious.

“Don’t worry, Mum,” I told her, “I’ll be fine!”

“Oh it’s not that,” she said. “I’ve asked your father to tape A Country Practice and I’m worried he won’t remember.”

After I undressed, I was put on a bed and wheeled to the operating theatre. Once there, a man inserted an IV into my arm, smiled, and told me to count backwards from ten. “Ten…” I said, and promptly passed out.

When I came to, I was in a room with several other girls lying in beds. I panicked straight away. Was this an abortion clinic? Had I just gotten breast implants? Been hit by a bus? Donated an organ? I flagged a nurse and grabbed her arm when she came to my bed. She patted my hand reassuringly and adjusted my gown, which had slipped down to my belly button. I hadn’t even noticed, I was so out of it.

I woke up again about half an hour later. This time, my mother was sitting next to me. “Are you ready yet?” she asked. “I’ve been here all freaking day, let’s hit the road.”

When we got home, I strapped a pack of ice around my jaw. Then I took four panadeine forte and got into bed. I woke up at 3pm the next day and prepared to move to the lounge. But here, my holiday began to divert from the original plan. Codeine made me simple-minded and unable to follow the swift, verbose dialogue of Dawson’s Creek. I kept falling asleep during each episode and waking up confused. And despite using the ice pack, after 24 hours, my jaw had swelled incredibly and my head resembled a peanut. My plans to recover glamorously, lying on the couch and entertaining visitors while my parents fetched me ice cream, had been thwarted by the fact that I was too embarrassed to let anybody see me.  My brother came home from work and sat on the coffee table, studying me. “You kind of look like you have Down’s syndrome,” he said. “Except uglier.”

“Fuck you,” I replied, too drugged up to think of any other response.

“I’m going to get my camera!” he said and went to his room.

I took two more panadeine forte and sank into the couch cushions, mentally willing my jaw to shrink.

The swelling did go down eventually, but it took exactly one week. One horribly long week of avoiding mirrors and keeping the blinds closed. Even after the pain in my jaw subsided, I couldn’t leave the house because I now had a deformed head. My brother invited his friends over to show them how ugly I had become. The ironing man looked at me sympathetically, the way one looks at a failed suicide who has inflicted hideous scars on themself but somehow scraped together the will to live, even with a face like a dropped pie. However, I was nowhere near that stoic. I wrapped big scarves around my face, even when I was home alone. And I flat-out refused to move back to my share house until my head had regained its normal shape. I realised that my face was the most important thing in the world to me, and I made a lifelong commitment to protect it. I would wear helmets and mouth guards and goggles and hats and sunscreen forever, because I knew I would never have the strength of character required to live with a crooked nose or a third degree facial burn. Oh I was born with blemishes like everyone else, but I was blessed with imperfections that I could mostly hide with clothing, make up, and lies. The Week of Ugly made me realise how lucky I was. Sure, I might have been dealt short-sightedness, scoliosis and terrible migraines, but at least I didn’t have a head shaped like a fucking peanut.

“What kind of program?” I asked Dr Riley suspiciously.

“Oh nothing too intense,” he replied. “It’s a full-time day course involving a lot of group therapy. The main focus is on anxiety and anger management.”

Anxiety and anger management? I could see where he was coming from with the first part. I had spent roughly 8 months prior to this hiding under my doona watching Dawson’s Creek all day and refusing to answer my phone or empty the letter box. On the rare occasions I left the house to get food or cigarettes or a bottle of vodka, I wore baggy clothes and went shopping at odd hours to avoid as many people as possible. Doing your groceries is usually a fairly stress-free task, but if I found myself caught in the after-school rush at Woolworths, I would suffer dizzy spells and heart palpitations. By the time I ended up in Dr Riley’s office, I had gained 15kg, dropped out of uni, quit my job, and moved back to my parents’ house because it had become evident I was incapable of dealing with the basics of life. I was twenty years old, and while I could score 98% on my statistics final and organise lavish birthday parties for my friends, I couldn’t get it together enough to open  my mail or wash my own clothes. So I could see why a little anxiety therapy wouldn’t go astray, but anger management? Was he being serious?

I put down my magazine and sat straighter in my chair. “I don’t really think I need to learn how to manage anger,” I told him. “I dont have any.”

“Ah but that’s the problem!” Dr Riley said, “You need to learn how to express your anger, rather than being in denial about its existence in the first place.”

“But what if I genuinely don’t have any?” I asked.

“You do,” he replied. “It’s there, you just can’t feel it.”

This troubled me deeply. If not feeling something meant that my brain wasn’t letting me feel that very thing, who knew what might be lurking underneath the surface? Maybe I was feeling all kinds of things, but my brain was blocking those emotions and tricking me into thinking they were never even there? Maybe I was compassionate? Maybe I cared about the environment? Maybe I was a lesbian?

I stared at Dr Riley for a few seconds. Then I tilted my head back slightly so that I could look down on him from across the room. “I don’t feel the need to rape children,” I said. “Should I go and do a course to learn how to express that too?”

“Please be serious,” Dr Riley said. “I think you’ll find that if you simply let yourself feel things, they won’t be all that bad.”

He had no idea. My feelings (the ones I knew about, anyway) were all-encompassing, omnipresent, and dangerously powerful. If they were all let out at once, my head would explode, the nearest 12 blocks would lose power, and every small animal within a 10km radius would drop dead. Planes would fall out of the sky, the ground would tremble, and Sydney’s elderly population would overheat and wither in their nursing home beds. A national crisis would be declared and a large-scale emergency team would need to be assembled to clean up the mess, and it would all be Dr Riley’s fault.

“I’m not angry,” I repeated.

“There are certain emotions which are healthy and normal, and their absence indicates a problem,” Dr Riley replied.

“Don’t you think that’s a little arrogant?” I asked nastily. “Who the hell are you to declare what the entire human population should or should not be able to feel?”

“Look, you know I can’t work with you when you’re being inflammatory,” Dr Riley said. “I need you to calm down if we’re going to talk about this outpatient program properly.”

“We don’t need to talk about it properly. I’m not going.”

“Will you actually consider this, rather than being so stubborn about it?” he said.

“Actually, you know what? I think this is really helping, cause I’m feeling pretty pissed off right about now,” I said, gathering my things.

“Are you sure you want to finish up on that note?” he asked, looking bored.

“Yes I’m sure. You can shove your anger management course.”

As I left the office, Dr Riley smiled and shook his head, and I felt furious.