Goodbye Whadjuk Boodja

 Well, I wasn't expecting that. 

As SQ214 pushed back and taxied to the runway, a dissociative episode hit me like a ton of bricks. What is dissociation? I've been asking myself that for years, and I think I understand now. It is a rection to anything which causes a trauma response. We all know about the fight/flight trauma response, but there are more than just the two. There is 'fright' which causes the respondee to 'freeze'...you know the rabbit in the headlights that is so terrified it can't move? Dissociation is being so afraid that the flooding of cortisol in the brain causes the pre-frontal cortex to disengage; as a result we can't function...and become bunny pancake by the oncoming car. 

What was it that terrified me into a freeze trauma response? It wasn't aviophobia. Thanks to the years of Dialectic Behaviour Therapy, 'Step Four's, journalling and obediance to the advice carved into the wall of the UWA arts faculty, 'know thyself', I'd say it was the fear of not knowing who I was now. Identity crises are not for the faint hearted, we all know that, we all experience them. I had spent twenty years 'working on my health'. A few years ago I started to receive some effective help from the government, it was called disability support. So, I identified as a disabled person. I had thought that my life was over. I still identify as a person with an invisible, psychosocial episodic disability, but now I can see that a disability doesn't need to be the end of our quality of life. Discovering my talent for musicology and having opportunities land in my lap has forced me to understand and meet the new way of being me. It's unsettling, but nothing a good cry can help to flush out. 

Then we took off, the view was spectacular and the crying started all over again. The landscape of the land I was born on is breath taking and I feel 'connection to country' very much. It would be easier to leave if it were the toxic late stage capitalist areseholery which was on show rather than beautiful Whadjuk Boodja. 

And here's a picture. 

Auf wiedersehen!

From the Compression Chamber

The view from my hotel on James Street.

Thirty years ago almost to the week, I prepared and left for Europe with my mate Nick. It was so much easier then. Preparing for my move to Dresden over the past nine weeks has been exciting and challenging. During the final 24 hours before departure, I feel on the precipice of My Life Part 2. 

The cahos within my hot apartment drove me to a hotel in Northbridge. This airconditioned sancutry is my depcompression chamber where I reflect on the past years and prepare for my upcoming year in Germany. Twenty years ago I returned to Australia to get help for the debilitating mental health symptoms which were ailing me. In those two decades I tried different jobs (bus driver, English teacher, peer support worker), got sober and engaged in much therapy and many treatments. Now I feel good. I identify as having an invisible and episodic psycho-social disability as a result of being neurodivergent and having complex PTSD. I continue to have melt-downs, but I recover quickly. I know what sets me off, so I can avoid that. I am ok now. Ahead of me lies a year of historic musicological research at the State Library of Saxony. I think it will be very fulfilling and satisfying. I am thrilled to be back in Germany.