Black Lives Matter protest Australia

BLM rally Australia

My thoughts on how the BLM protests went in my home town. These are my thoughts and experiences and how this moved me to really think and educate myself on the issues here in Australia. Upfront, I am a white Australian male who has two African- American step children. I have so many thoughts on this whole topic and how I see other peoples reactions.

The Issue With Racism: Education! The issue with racism and why I feel there is so much unwarranted division around the races is the lack of education (on the white races point of view) of the history of the black race within their country. Take America for example, I think it should be mandatory for schools to visit the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. I went there last year and it was am amazing insight of the treatment and importation of Africans during the slave trade period. It also shows the brutality and lack of care for human life the white people showed during this time. it then goes on to show and educate how Black Americans have been treated from then on.

I put up a post on social media (below) when the protests in America first started. This inherently summed up my thoughts around education towards the issue:

The Protest: It was a peaceful, well organised protest (cant say the same for other protests around the country). The issue around Covid-19 was a priority for the organisers. Face masks , hand sanitiser and water were given out to all who attended to make the event as safe as possible. Although the impetus of the rally was put together due to the George Floyd situation, the major educational message to come out of it was our history of deaths in custody within our Aboriginal community. Like America, we have had abuse and murder of or black community with no recourse from our law enforcement. At the time of the rally, Australia recorded 432 deaths of Aboriginal people in custody without any criminal conviction of the law enforcement responsible for their well-being.

There were several powerful speakers who spoke to educate the masses without slandering the police or the government. They were passionate, articulate and really pushed the movement for change strongly. There were, however, a couple who I felt got a little carried away and let their passion over-rule the message that was intended. I fully understand this as this was the first major platform for these issues to be addressed. For me, it just takes away from the message when people let emotion rule the conversation to the point they are slandering our Prime Minister. Once again, I understand the passion and sentiment, but I feel it makes the message of what it attempting to be put across that little bit weaker when too much emotion over rides the message.

The majority of speakers were amazing and there was some seriously powerful messages and insight into our situation. It was extremely emotional and it caused me to tear up a few times. The stories told by relatives of the people who had died in custody were extremely powerful and confronting. For me, it was a huge eye opener to the injustices that have happened in our own backyard.

Once the speakers had finished, we all marched into the city center and back again. It was lead by several Aboriginal men on motorbikes, loud motorbikes. This was amazing to experience, the loudness of the motorbike engines mixed in with the chants was an awesome experience to be a part of. The march itself was peaceful and powerful.

There is more I want to write on this, but wont make this blog “War and Peace”. More to come.

Reading my thoughts

Today I went back and read this blog I created when I was going through the lowest point in my life.  I was suffering from depression and anxiety and was looking for a mental outlet to relieve some of the tension.  Blogging was a form of mental medication for me.  I wrote these blogs under an anonymous name and poured my heart out in the form of the written word. This was a way for me to really let my feelings out without any fear of judgement.  I wrote them not intending for people to read them, they were for me and were a chance for me to focus on what I was writing and fully articulate feelings, which as a male, is sometimes very hard to do.

These were written 3 years ago, and I am no longer in that place or in that state of mind. Reading them back today though was a weirdly refreshing feeling.  It was good to look back and think to myself “thank God I am not in that place anymore”, but it also made me think of how hard it really was for me at that time and how much of a struggle the Black Dog can be. At the time I really felt there was no getting out of the situation and there was no light at the end of the tunnel.  The only thing that helped me and that I really clung onto, was the fact my GP told me that my depression was situational and that I will get over it at some stage (although at the time it felt like I never would).

Did I get over it? Well, for the most part, yes.  I think when you go through something like that, you never fully recover.  Out of all the pain and anguish I went through, I have come out of the situation a better person as a whole.  It taught me how to be more empathetic and how to relate to people a whole lot more, especially as a male.  I was the typical guy who was taught not to show weakness, especially emotional weakness and ESPECIALLY around other men. When you are stripped right back and have no choice but to deal and confront raw emotions, it changes you and gives you a much greater understanding of pain, anxiety and depression. For me personally, this happened to me in my late 30’s and I can honestly say that I am a different person (for the better) than what I was before.  This is something that I find hard to fully articulate, but I hope the idea of what I am writing about has come across.

I am so glad I did decide to blog my thoughts and feelings down. It was a therapeutic release for me at the time and that’s all it was intended to be.  I honestly thought I would never read them again, to be honest, I never wanted to.  It has taken me 3 years to look at them and I had my reservations about doing it.  I had the slight fear that reading what I went through may stir up some of those old feelings and bring them back.  Thankfully, I can say they haven’t, in fact, they have done the opposite.  Reading them back made me appreciate the pain I had gone through and made me reflect on the situation to get to where I am today.  It reminded me of some of the physical and mental feelings I experienced I had otherwise forgotten.  It really made me appreciate the struggle and fight I put up to fix a situation I thought , at the time, I could not control.  Writing down my coping mechanisms and how much I fought to “fix” myself was somewhat inspiring to me and I feel proud how I handled it.

I can honestly say that blogging was a factor in me working through my depression, in a way it was a part in saving my life.  For people going through a similar situation, I really would encourage for you to get your thoughts and feelings out in word form, whether that be in blog form, or even just writing it down on paper, I believe it really helps.  Writing it down forces you to think about your feelings and take the time to articulate them. It helps you understand the pain, this intern educates you and helps you understand why you are feeling it. Well, that’s what it did for me. Everybody is different and everybody deals with situations differently.  All I can say is, it really, really helped me.

A while between drinks

It has been a while since my last blog and a while between drinks…. literally. I have gone over 2 months without a drop of alcohol. I have done this primarily for 2 reasons. 

1. To ensure I don’t use it as an escape from my situational anxiety/depression.
2. For health reasons along with seeing if I could do it for an extended period of time.

Reason 1: my ex wife, mother in law and ex girlfirend all suffer from depression, and all 3 were/are alcoholics. They all used alcohol to escape their mind or situations to some degree. From what I experienced this was only ever a temporary escape, but an escape none the less. I am not knocking people who drink to escape, I have personally done it in the past, but I have seen what it can do long term. It destroys relationships and even families of it gets out of control.

I will be the first one to say I am not sure if alcohol effects the medication taken to suppress depression, but I am going to go out on a limb and say it wouldn’t help. I presonally am not taking medication as my situation is very different (as my depression is situational), but I have seen the affects of what alcohol can do and I would rather face this with a clear head and focus on getting me better. I don’t want escape, I want to work through this rough patch feeling everything so I know that if it should rise again I am strong enough to deal with it without any “help”.

Reason 2: This one is fairly straight forward. I am doing it to also cleanse myself and also test myself to see if I could drop the habit. I am not going to lie, I was drinking everyday and would even have beer by my bed so I could have one before I slept. It got pretty bad there for a while. Tony Robbins stated something along the lines of ‘you become who you spend tour time with” and I became an alcoholic. I would drink with the ex wife and ex girlfriend to be social (to start off with), but then it became the norm. A night not drinking was much, much rarer than an night drinking. We would talk, drink, get drunk, go to sleep, wake up, go to work, come home and do it all again. That was the routine and it was not fun.

Giving up was actually easy for me, well the first week and a bit was hard, but after that the urge to drink just disappeared. 3 weeks into my no drinking I had my first major test. I had a work function in another state in which we were being rewarded for a project we had completed. We stayed in a hotel and all went out for dinner and drinks. When I say “drinks” it was one of those functions where everyone is expected to drink and drink hard.  I let everyone know I wasn’t drinking (I said it was for fitness reasons, which isn’t a total lie) and I received the expected “what, you’re not drinking? You’re no fun” and “what’s wrong mate, going soft on us?”. These comments just rolled off of my back and I stuck to my story.

As the night kicked on the intoxication of the group climbed drastically while I remained sober. I had never done this at a work function before and it was funny and surprising how people acted without being a part of drinking myself. The corporate veil fell as the drinks increased and peoples insecurities and confidence also increased. It was actually fun for me to be the only sober person in the room. Another major positive was waking up the next morning completely clear headed while all others were seedy. People were coming to me to try and peice together the previous nights events to make sure they hadn’t done anything too over the top. I could have messed with people here and told some half truths, but I played it safe and let all know what had exactly happened…. although I was tempted to stir the pot a little haha. 

I don’t know how long I will keep this up, I assume that I will drink again, but I am conscious of not falling back into the old routine. I don’t have an end date, I will just keep going until I feel right within myself. I have gone long enough without it now to not have any urges to drink. Will see how long it lasts, but I am feeling much better for it both mentally and physically. 

Brodie

Bitter sweet

Well, the ex is breaking up with her new boyfriend… it lasted all of two and a half months. I have mixed feelings about this, well not that mixed, I am happy that this is happening but for a couple of different reasons. 

Hear me out on this as it is not all about being happy for negative or vindictive reasons, although there is some of that. I will start with the vindictive though. I am glad they are breaking up! She moved on so quickly after we split and I knew he wouldn’t be right for her. He is 6 years younger and still a child, she latched onto him because he showed her some affection and now she has worked out that they don’t actually click or gel at all. She kicked me in the guts by moving on so quickly and I feel some of her actions were there to deliberately hurt me. The bastard in me is glad that she tried with someone else and it failed. I know she told her friend that she doesn’t have the same connection that she had with me. Although it is nasty, there is a sense of happiness in that for me.

I am also happy that they are breaking up as she needs to get herself sorted out mentally. Her previous long term boyfriend (before me) was an absolute asshole to her both physically and mentally. To this day if I ever saw him walking down the street I would confront him over it. He took a girl with a beautiful soul and broke it. The guy she is breaking up with now seems like a nice guy to be honest (outside looking in, I don’t know him at all), but she latched on to stop the pain of grieving and it has made things worse for her now. He may be a nice guy, but if he is hurting over this I have little to no sympathy for him. He knew what he was doing and he has ended up being a rebound.

She is a troubled soul and I actually feel sorry for her. After she made contact not long ago I thought long and hard about her and her situation. I messaged her back with some things that I am doing to help myself mentally and hope she takes them up. I still care for her deeply, hell, I still love her, but I’m not going to go running straight back to her or do anything like that. She needs help and I offered suggestions. I have left it at that, it is up to her now if she wishes to act on it. I know her family have tried to help her, but she must want to be helped first before anything will change. I really hope she does get help and starts to sort some out of the demons she has.

Brodie

Blogging to break the cycle

Blogging is a form of release for me. I am not too fussed if people actually read my posts, but there is something very therapudic in getting my feelings down in written form and publishing it. I am doing this all anonymously. My real name is not Brodie, but I am putting my raw feelings out there and wish to remain anonymous doing so.

Blogging helps me most when I am starting to get overwhelmed with negative thoughts. I was having this just now but writing this very blog has helped me calm down. I highly reccomend this to anyone going through anything similar. Here I get to spew my thoughts and feelings without anyone I know judging or knowing my emotional weaknesses. If people I dont know judge me, I dont care in the slightest, they dont know who I am or what I am about. There is a sense of freedom in that which is really appealing to me.

I have a few people I can talk to about my situation and they have been a great help, but blogging like this is another great form of release. With each word typed out I feel just that little bit calmer. I know this is only temporary, but it breaks the negative thought cycle and lets me refocus on something different. If anyone actually reads this, thank you haha.

Brodie

Spiralling back down through contact

I listened to a podcast about break ups and it brought up the topic of no contact with the ex for the minimum of a month and after the month it should all start getting easier. I accepted this and marked the date on my calendar, the 13th of June was the last time I messaged her to say that I would not contact her again.  I blocked what I could on social media and deleted her number. 

1 month later, to the day, the 13th of July I received a message from her asking how I was doing. It came out of the blue and it shocked me, she is still seeing another guy. I replied and gave my apologies for our split and told her what I was going through. Long story short, she said I would find someone and then blocked my number. This was honestly the worst thing that could have happened with my progress.

It gave me false hope of a possibility of us communicating again and it brought up a lot of emotions which has spiralled me back down. I was progressing well and it has angered me that I have taken a few steps back because of this. I miss her and this felt unfair as I was starting to make some real progress. It is another situation of “I know I will get over this”, but I really dont want this happening again. I need to move on if she has. The thing that has annoyed me the most is that I still have feelings for her and I am finding it hard to think of anything else at the moment. I am trying to focus on me, but this has thrown a major spanner in the works.

Today is the 17th of July, so it is only 3 days after the contact. In all honesty I want to happen again if there is a chance of us getting back together and trying again, but if not I hope she never contacts again. I am so torn at the moment it is frustrating. After this it feels like I need to start again with my personal development. I have not slipped down far enough to be back to the darkest place I was before, but I have certainly slipped. I think of her and the situation 24/7 at the moment and am trying to make sense of why she contacted me in the first place. 

In one way I want to show her I am changing and on the other, if there is no hope for us ever getting back together, I want her totally out of my life so I can move on and get over her. I am really struggling with this, but I know time and help will heal all. This is one bumpy road that I wasn’t expecting to change my life as much as it has. I gotta keep on keeping on and I will keep posting my progress and developments as time carries on.

Brodie

Two steps forward, one step back

I am getting there, I have made some major headway over the last few days. I have gone from an extremely over emotional couple of weeks to slowly getting better within my own head. I have calmed the thoughts down a lot (they are still there, just not as savage) and have settled my brain a fair bit. Although I say that, I am currently typing this at 4am as I can’t sleep.

So I have been struggling with sleep lately. Its not getting to sleep that is the problem, it is waking up at 3 or 4 in the morning and not being able to get back to sleep.  I wake up and my mind immediately starts racing. I think about think about what should have been, what could have been and what is…. and thats is bloody tough for me to get my head around sometimes. I overthink, it gets me sad and frustrated and I cant sleep. This has been a constant for me over the last few months and I havent had a full 8 hours sleep for a long time. I know this too will get better and is a time thing, but gee whiz it is a pain in the arse right now. 

My emotional thinking through the day has dulled down considerably. I still do it, but it is having less of an impact to what it had before. I still do have spikes of emotions during every day where I do overthink and I get a heat that runs through my chest,  but these are nowhere near as bad as they once were. Things are getting better day by day. The thing that scares me is that I have been here before. I was at this stage a few weeks ago but then a significant emotional event happened and I was almost straight back to square one (as I have blogged about in the past). I do fear this happening again, but am happy with the progress I am currently making…… gotta celebrate the positives.

I am a very straight forward thinker and am very determined when I want to be. In my thoughts I want this all to pass as soon as possible. If I could take one class or do one meditaion that would fix all this I would pay a stupid amount of money to do so. I do realise that this is not a reality, but I am doing everything I possibly can to try and improve this. I have:

• Recognised something is wrong
• Gone to the doctors and obtained a mental health plan
• Seen a psychologist 
• Worked out he wasn’t right for my needs and changed
• Reconnected with people who care and talked…. a lot!
• Set up morning routines
• Started a blog to release some thoughts
• Picked up basic photography as a hobby
• Started meditation
• Tried reiki (good, just wasn’t for me)
• Started getting massages (which I had never done before)
• Stopped drinking (not permanently, but want a clear mind)
• Eating much healthier and cut out caffeine (mainly to try and sleep)
• Exercising more (looked at crossfit, but man that is an expensive hobby)
• About to get back into yoga
• Have gone to a “meet up” group to meet new people (will blog about this experience soon)
• Looking at a small solo overseas trip (never done this before)

Just looking at that list written down makes me feel a little happy with what I have done to change and what I am looking to do moving forward. A lot of this has helped me greatly, especially the tasks that keep my mind active. I MUST keep moving forward and do all that I can to help improve this situation. No one else is going to do this for me, it is up to me and me alone. I know there are more hurdles to come, but I am getting there slowly but surely.

Brodie

Emotions are a funny thing…

I find it fascinating how emotions can over rule even the soundest of minds. I would consider myself a very rational thinking guy, but recently due to a break up my emotions have clouded my thoughts and made my life various shades of hell. 

My can feel my brain working in 2 ways, there is the rational/logical side and then there are the actual emotional thoughts themselves. When the emotional thoughts come in, my rational brain knows what I am thinking is over the top and not 100% factual, but my emotional thinking over rules that and I feel down and saddened by it. It feels like I am some what at war with myself when this happens and it is hard to let the rational thoughts win. 

I have started meditation and am trying to let thoughts come and go like watching cars go past. The problem I find is that my mind tends to be like the main character of the game Grand Theft Auto and I find myself punching the driver of those thoughts, jumping in and driving as hard and fast as I can. I eventually crash that thought vehicle into another and start the process again. My rational brain feels like the person playing the game, watching from an outsiders point of view and thinking “what an idiot, I would never do that in real life”. It is slowly getting better with each guided meditiaion session I do. I know I need to train my brain, so this is going to be a process that I will continue to push through.

I know that the rational brain will eventually win this war, emotions are just winning the battle at the moment and thats ok because I am learning as this adventure continues.

Brodie

To call or not to call? That is the question.

So I have the unyeilding urge to call my ex and explain my side and my errors in the relationship that broke down. I am holding off, but the thought of it is starting to consume me. I want to let her know about my progress and how I am improving myself. I want her to know that I was in a bad place when we split and I am over coming it. She has moved on already and has someone else and I am feeling torn in half….. I still love her.

I haven’t reached that point yet where I have called or sent a message, but I know if I do that it will open up woulds I am trying to heal. I just feel I need to apologise and explain myself. I know deep down that this is for the wrong reasons. I want her back and in my warped mind I feel that explaining how much I have changed and how I know what I did wrong will help fix things…. it won’t. I think about him and her almost 24/7 and it eats me up inside. It is a life lesson and one I am learning the hard way. Even writing all this down is hard. Feels like I am punching myself in the gut with every word. 

I am so torn in what to do as I feel that there is the slightest chance it could change things I would be willing to give it a go. Then I think that I am just coming across as desperate and must respect where she is now. God, I never knew this stuff could hurt so much. Give me a kick in the balls anyday over this feeling. Not sure what I am going to do yet….. see how it goes.

Brodie

Men, let’s talk!

Being a man and having a bout of anxiety/depression can be an amazingly isolating experience. As a man going through this one of the things that helps me relieve my mind is talking about it, but trying to find other men to do this with is extremely difficult. Don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of male friends, but none of us talk on a deeper level than sport and general life and surface issues. It is a culture that has been ingrained into us and this culture needs to be broken.

I am envoius of females and their ability to talk to each other. If men could talk the way most females do I think there would be less of us acting like douchebags and more of us being a lot more understanding. Out of the group of male friends I have there has only been one who I can talk to about my situation on a deeper level and even then I feel I have to hold back a bit on what I am saying in fear of coming across weak. Chatting to females on the other hand has been amazing. The ease of which I have been able to open up and discuss without judgement has been a real eye opener for me.

Even though I have opened up to females I really feel the urge to talk to men about my issues. Not totally sure why this is, but I think it is to just have the reassurance from other men that they have been through what I am going through and there are ways to work around it or resolve it. Looking on the internet for males groups in my area or even anything online has been hard. From what i can see, there just doesnt seem to be much out there. There was one group I was going to join and was quite excited for, but then the group shut down due to lack of interest. If anyone has any suggestions for an online group like this, I’m all ears. 

I am realising that I need to open up my social circles. I am actively attempting to do this now (it is easier said than done),  but I am actively getting out there and trying to improve. It’s a funny dynamic at the moment as I feel my eyes have been opened and yet I see so many men who are still living their life with their eyes shut. I will continue with this quest of male discussion and understanding and I’m sure I will blog about my adventures in the future. Here goes nothing.

Brodie