I haven't done another oil pastel masterpiece in days. We are going camping for nine days today so this will be my last blog for the year! Go me! I can't roll with rollies brand papers. Can't do it.
All this relaxation is getting to me. I sit around and feel guilty for not earning a living or going to uni everyday and coming home and having something to cram. I've planned my essay in my head so when I go to the library it should be easy enough to find everything I need then get out of there.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year To All the Hardcore Fans of Love at First Web Site

  ¶ 14:04 0 Comments

  This is my relaxation kit for 2005-06.

1 side verandah with table, ashtray and day-bed
1 front verandah with a little view of mountains
1 sketchpad
1 set of oil pastels
3 bottles of vodka mudshakes
1 packet of rolling tobacco with rolling paper
1 lap-top with two years running blog
1 book of amusing short-stories
1 long-lost sister

Now I'm going to write my own short-story.

I was 12 when I started smoking. At the time all my sisters did it. It was cool and grown-up. I tried starting a smoking-in-the-toilets craze at Hornsby Girls but it never took off. Nerds. After the Tampax lady had left I threw unwrapped tampons onto the rainy ground three stories below. That didn't really take off either. In fact the only things that took off at that school were study and UAI's over 90.

At Gosford High it was UAI's over 80 and joints-in-the-bushes. That was more like it. Apparently Holly the daughter of the bottled-water millionaire sucked the 'cool' geek Frances' dick every Tuesday afternoon in the bushes behind the oval. It was co-ed.

I had my own memorable scandal which was: uncoolly being held responsible for the vodka found in John's tent at Year 10 camp. We lost the lid in the bushes and he had to keep the bottle upright on the floor under his cheap, damp excuse for a bed. I successfully avoided discovery during the tent-searches by keeping mine cosily squashed into the centre of my rolled up sleeping bag. The policy was to send me home and I would have liked that. But alas my mother simply refused to come and pick me up, three hours away in Tea Gardens just behind the fake Ayers Rock that was the old Leyland Brothers World. So, I was kept in the air-conditioned first-aid room with two beds and some videos e.g. The Never Ending Story at my disposal while I pondered my enforced isolation. For hours. Finally they let me reintegrate with the student population. I kept my sunnies on and focused on my cool exterior, contemplating my Year Advisor having said to me "Why you? You are so beautiful." Holly was dead-ugly. So I snuck off and had a cigarette.  ¶ 18:00 0 Comments

  Gemini

You may or may not eat a meal today and the chances are you will go to bed and sleep later on. The phone will ring today.

Taurus

Being the bull, you have a low tolerance for bullshit, that's why it comes out of your arse rather than your mouth.

We just read the stars and dude, why don't all the stars for each sign in each magazine or newspaper say the same thing? This week I'm going to be enlightened and a new understanding will open my mind and heart to Capitalism. No I just added that. The American forces will come in and put you in a hamlet.

Apparently people are always looking for babysitters. They don't pay by the hour or anything but it'd be a good chance to get some extra cash and get busy. Plus I'm on a campaign to learn how to be good with kids so the babysitting will help.

Last night we stayed up late and continued our 18 years of catching up. This morning I woke up with a new idea: instead of eventually going back to Sydney to go to uni, study in the country and live at college where unlike at Sydney uni college is not for rich people it's for normal Centrelink customers like me. That way I wouldn't be sharing with strangers and smoking the occasional cone. And it'd be a good environment to study and the courses would be easier etc. Kate suggested I find a combination of design and marketing. Perfect. Why didn't I think of that? Of course unis know the dilemmas of people like me: business or pleasure? Both, dude! Although they might only have that combo in sydney at UTS so yeah I might end up back in Sydney. My marks for the essay won't be in before they calculate my new UAI so it won't go up by much. No wait, unless I go for it next year. Study art this year and later on in life I can look back and say that I did everything I wanted to do. Perfecto.  ¶ 10:37 0 Comments

  KT's Update.

Lizwa has just rolled her first cigarette, after converting to rollies after smoking tailor mades for 9 years. she bought her first packet of Winfield Gold rollies yesterday, and today she has mastered the art of rolling. that all i have to say about that.

She has just returned from the bottle shop, after declaring she wasnt going to drink after her hospitilisation, but after the bad influence of her sister, drinking beer for some time, she decided to to go; well it was closed. Have another cigarette. That's Karma for you. she is not meant to drink. luckily to Cappuccino machine is on.

and now over to Shane: Hi Bloggsters, Nelsie looks mighty comfortable on the varandah day bed all rugged up, sitting here with Harry boy on my lap. How good is this! No wind, not cold, not hot, not a terrorist in sight, no car bombs, famine is good, no tsunami's in sight. No chance of a flood, dam is at 60% and the boat is running fine, van's in the premium spot, Christmas is looking good. CQDX and standing by.........(and then....) Hai you ne

This is Liz again, i'm having a fantastic time, and then, looking forward to my first christmas in Australia in 2 years.  ¶ 21:24 0 Comments

  Kate's Post

Hi, i am this weeks guest blogger. Yes, Liz is going to be our next BIG thing! her artwork is out of this world. today we are now officially wireless, and we are sitting on the verandah, yes the verandah, wireless, writing and web surfing. and liz has just been invited out to her first social occasion in Tumut with a team of young professionals for their christmas party, then on boxing day we are going to the boxing day races.

The boxing day races in Tumut is the biggest race meet to hit this town, and whereas it used to be just the races it has turned more into a B & S ball. (For all of you that dont know what a B&S is, Liz didnt know either!) It is where you all get dressed up pretty and act civilised and by 8pm that night, you're stumbling down and sharing a swag with the closest guy that has swag!!! and more than likely owns either a) a ute b)a horse c)drinks rum or d)all of the above.

But in between all this networking for my latest and greatest sister is the camping, wakeboarding and eating over the christmas period. will keep you posted on the outcome of all of the above.

signing off

KT  ¶ 17:09 0 Comments

  Becoming a struggling artist is hard work. Sitting on the verandah, learning to roll cigarettes, I quietly contemplate my future as an infamous artist, infamous for stubbornly asserting new definitions of 'art' and bribing galleries to exhibit pencil sharpeners bought at the newsagent, teaspoons, and live cats. So far, I have the artistic ability of a two year old, but my logic is, two year olds eventually grow up into Picassos. Picassos especially, because I can't draw real stuff so it all has to be under the umbrella of 'abstract'. 'T's'all good. We bought a million canvasas today including a huge one that we're going to get everyone to paint on over the camping trip.  ¶ 17:45 0 Comments

  Bill the cat is just like Bonnie. The other day I nearly accidentally called him/her Bonnie.
Today we're taking the caravan up to the dam for camping so we can get a good spot.
My take-home exams: THe Chinese one was soooooo hard. Last question required you to actually read and comprehend the whole 3-page story which I frankly don't have time to do so I left the answer blank. And another one. And another one. For the first time in my career at uni, I am going to fail a test. My average for third-year will go down to a pass or credit and all that hard work during the semester will go to waste. For Remaking Chinese Society I was given the mark of Incomplete which means technically I have a very long time to finish to essay but the instructor is asking when I'll hand it in so I am planning a trip to Canberra to visit the national library to do a bit of research and do some general sussing out of the library. THe kids are going to go to the Questacon. I also wrote out the classical take-home. I couldn't use the original paper because I had written bizarre answers all over it. And I did a half-arse job at the third-year homework questions: 'Write 200 characters on what you would want to happen at the end of the story.' and I wrote They meet again and finally get married. They move overseas and he writes a book on his experiences. I hope that is accepted as a 'serious attempt'. Just glad to get it over and half-done with.  ¶ 08:41 0 Comments

  Stalking Fellow Bloggers.

http://spaces.msn.com/members/thenewstatesman/  ¶ 13:17 0 Comments

  Hi it's me again. Feel like typing stuff so I'm going to begin another novel.

Mental wards.

Catena was a case and a half. Suicidally anorexic-bulemic. Eye-opening. Devastating. Sad. Too much reality for moi. Been in there over a year. They let her go home while I was still there. For good, which means, according to a seasoned patient that a) they had given up on her b) Public system can't keep her alive anymore. She was seriously ill in many ways. What was worse for her was that most of the patients come in and out of the Observation Unit with psychosis and things like that while she is in always in touch with the reality that we're all used to. She had adapted to life in the Observation Unit. She had learnt how to predict those amazing professionals a.k.a. the nurses. You're not meant to be there for that long. For her it was about life or death. She never got better. She had grown lazy in concealing her bulimia but still denied it.

Nicole I later found out had three children. They are with her parents and she doesn't know where her parents are. She was generous with Coca-Cola and lollies but turned into a major cigarette scab and I reluctantly learnt to say no after days of hanging out and being friends. (A day in the Open Ward is a long time.) Her, Rob and I became a posse for each other. We had seats than noone else was allowed to sit in. Rob was always in his and we would always come straight back after going somewhere. ROb and I found out that we were both leaving the next day. Nicole got depressed, partly because she'd have noone to scab cigarettes off anymore and because the triumvirate ("don't throw those four-syllable words on us please, Liz") was breaking apart. I went into her room to talk with her. She started crying and things became serious. Then my phone rang, I answered it, and talked for forty minutes while Nicole waited for me to get off. She had wanted to talk. I wanted to talk with her but also wanted to talk to my friend on the phone. The talk was forgotten and after I got off the phone she was fine again and came back outside. I felt awful and still do. The first time she tried heroin was twenty years ago at age 15. I wish my friend had not called me. I think Nicole was used to being treated like shit to tolerate that. Sorry Nicole. I wish you had had an address.  ¶ 21:23 0 Comments

  My first day in Tumut

Today I woke up and made eggs benedict for Shane. Was a bit rocky with the poaching process but the meal was edible!!!

We got the pink slip for the car today. And saw a doctor. And I sent the library books back to Sydney Uni and went to the local library where they have a few books on China but can't borrow them as yet.

From Christmas to New Year we are camping at the dam and going wakeboarding aswell and also taking canvases so we can paint the days away. The laptop is also coming and I can work on my blasted essay if I feel like it. Halfway through I'm coming back for another needle in the bum.

On Monday we're going to Wagga for some xmas shopping. And that is my news. Oh my room is absolutely beautiful and I almost don't want to leave! When I get back to Sydney I'll get a double bed. New goal: be sleeping in double bed before 22nd birthday. With someone in it? No never I'm not interested. Actually I am. But you can't break the heart of someone like myself: Next time, someone's got to pay. I might just marry Mark before he comes out of the closet JUST KIDDING MARK.

OK this is my first day in Tumut. I like playing with the kids and hanging out on the portch. It's all good. Too excited to do something like read. Made another collage and did a masterpiece with oil pastels. :-)

Love,
The One and Only,
Lizwa  ¶ 18:04 0 Comments

  Tumut

It's 1pm which means 23.5 hours till I arrive in Gundagai. This is my official countdown program:
1:30 Drink apple juice
3:30 Try to read but give in to unrelated contemplative thoughts
4:30 Try to explain for the 57th time what it's like to be mad to my Mum. Maybe I should abuse my blog using it solely for this purpose. Still thinks psychosis is a mood thing. Try, 'COMPLETELY INSANE'. Yes, it happened to someone you know!
6:00 Watch The Simpsons
7:00 Finish packing and get into pj's.
4:00 Have breakfast.
5:00 Get on train to Central
7:30 Get on bus. Yippee!
1:30pm Fun fun fun!

Madness Chapter 1

I think I need to expand on the concept of losing contact with reality. What does that mean? OK. Let's start with examples. Close your eyes and imagine. One of your many delusions is that your family has placed random things around the house in special positions so that you can infer a special meaning from each object. Let's say there's a grey clock sitting on the table. When you see that grey clock, it means someone is trying to tell you that you need to address the grey areas between concepts that seem to be in black and white. Basic Delusions 101. Once you are fully psychotic, you are unaware that you are having 'delusions'. It may sound hard to believe, but you truly believe that someone placed that clock there to try to tell you something. Or you start suffering from involuntary movements in the face. You believe in was one of your best friends who has supernatural powers, then ask her not to come and visit you. You must always believe someone who is doing their best to explain their odd behaviour while psychotic. Nobody is trying to make excuses. Just telling it like it is. Do not try to analyse someone's behaviour yourself and try to make your own sense of it. It will make no sense to anyone except to the person that is psychotic themselves. This, my friends, is the nature of madness.

So what about delusions. Your brain hops from one to the other. Some are somehow related to themes that occur in real life. Your eyes see random objects, cars, driving by, someone walking past with a coffee in their hands, a CD jutting out of a hard drive, and turns these occurences into 'clues' that your brain takes into account when it develops complicated and involved delusional theories about things like the reason you seem to be locked up in jail. In my case, I had trouble deciding which reason was 'true' as to why I was in hospital:
a) It was a sick joke
b) I was going to be tested on my endurance of torture
c) This was a polite way of being put in jail while I was defending myself at a trial

Guess what never occurred to me? That I was having a psychotic episode.

OK will write more later. Will write a book on it. Anything to get it into people's heads that not all psyhciatric problems are mood-related.  ¶ 12:53 0 Comments

  NYPDLIZWA

Lizwa imagined she was a detective. She began interviews (bordering on interrogations) of all those that could offer information about stuff.

"Where were you the on the morning of May 21st, 1984?" She asked.

"As soon as I saw your long legs, I knew it was what we had all suspected." Norman laughed heartily.

As a detective, Lizwa did not know what to believe. She felt like the only way to find out the truth was to collect 'statements' from everybody and piece together anything that was consistent. Then she went on to consider a career in the police force. Lizwa wanted to believe everything he said. It sounded consistent with other evidence. But there were there was a point of unclarity. Lizwa, as part of her investigation, required info about the approximate date that Norman started getting it on with Charlene. In his written testimony there looked like he had made a correction to the year that he met her. The year was important. But then she contemplated why she had chosen to take on this case in the first place. What was so important about finding out what really happened? She had a natural interest in her origins. And she had to know, after one or two parties accusing each other of lying, who was the liar? More importantly, who had been lying to












her?















When she arrived home she found her cat blogging about herself in the third person, closed her notebook, and called it a day.  ¶ 17:13 0 Comments

  Understanding Psychotic ExperiencesA Must-Read, especially the section on causes.  ¶ 19:05 0 Comments

  Sorry I deleted that last post and couldn't go back to it. I thought it revealed too much of the inner workings of my brain to put on a blog. First I think noone's reading this then I discover there are a few and think gee I better delete that!

It was mainly about how older generations think any mental illness can be categorised as a breakdown or a harmless attention-seeking bout of depression. It will take another episode till a doctor susses out my history and I get diagnosed with schizophrenia and when in a few years the doctor suggests I try going off my medication again and I have another episode, only then will people realised that perhaps I'm not deliberately pretending to be psychotic for attention. This is something that really really gets to me. To be doubted in this way is one of the most nightmarish feelings I've ever experienced. Who wants to be locked up for three weeks and take injections in the butt everyday? Realising that the big male nurses manhandling you the first time in order to politely tell you you have no choice in the matter is completely legal. God help me.

Speaking of god, there is a documented link between psychosis and spirituality. When I had my little spiritual experience lying awake on my bed in Dongbie who would have thought that that may or may not have been the humble beginnings of my psychotic future. Hey get this, I can now type psychotic without looking. Sad. It felt good to say I was officially no longer an aetheist but now I realise it may well have been the case that my mind was playing tricks on me.  ¶ 09:34 0 Comments

  Am I allowed to say I have writer's block? Well, I do. No inspiration whatsoever. So they say, "just start writing." So here's my new experiment to see what happens when you 'just start writing':

Just start writing. That's what they say when you have writer's block. But who says I'm a writer anyway? Everyone's a writer, even if it's just your signature. That's still writing. Although I guess it's meant to encompass prose or poetry or something a little more formal than a b-l-o-g.

So there you have it, I just started writing what was on my mind. What do ya reckon? Wait I'll do it again:

Can someone please leave a comment on my poor and lonely blog? I would really appreciate it. Come on, you know you want to. Excepting my three greatest fans, Mum and Mark and Kate!  ¶ 15:15 0 Comments

  Accompanied Mel to the Big Brother audition queue at Sydney Uni. Showed her where Wentworth was, got lunch, spent some quality time together. Everyone was saying I should audition too, (I have Big Brother potential!), but Mel said I might get to Level 2 and she wouldn't, so I decided not to so she could monopolise the joy. I'll definitely go next year. I said if I won, I'd take us all on a holiday to some ridiculously expensive location but she said if she won she'd invest it all and keep it to herself. I demanded a special gift for waiting in line with her! Either way I get to meet Gretel on stage. Anyway according to my Mum, I'm eccentric. How cool is that? There I was sitting in line unashamed of my unshaved legs with a punnet of strawberries in my small-as-it-is handbag. An eccentric designer. I bought an art magazine today and there was this guy who started out studying product design at uni and then he just went on from there, and I'm like, how cool, my future career is only just beginnning to bud haha! So anyway we met some nice people in the queue, played cards and chatted. It was all good. I just got kicked out of the line because I'm not auditioning, Mel is still in line, it's 3:00 now and they said that it might be 7:00 until she actually goes in. So I've got some serious hanging around to do in the library, otherwise I'll just catch the train home to Gosford. Shit now that I've finished writing this awfully uninspired blog post, I've got jack shit to do. Will brush up on Mao, I guess, for the darned essay that I got special consideration for.  ¶ 14:46 0 Comments

  Must Like Conspiracy Theories
the new movie by acclaimed director Lizwa

Doorman: Welcome home, Lizwa
Lizwa: What did you just say to me? Huh?
Doorman: All I said was, 'Welcome home'.
Lizwa: Stop controlling my mind, it's really irritating, I mean all I want is some privacy, goddamit!
DOorman: Luckily you gave me the number of your case worker, Lizwa. You're a case and-a-half.
Lizwa: That so-called case worker is just a secret agent, why call her, so you can discuss my thoughts? I know about the secret service's powers of telepathy, you know, and what I want to know is, if you can control people's thoughts, what about third-world hunger and war? Huh? What's all that about?
Doorman: Are you hearing voices Lizwa?
Lizwa: No, I've entered into telepathic conversations with people who really exist!
Doorman: Maybe it's just your subconscious talking. Take your medication.
Lizwa: They'll kill my whole family if I do.
Doorman: No, they won't. That thought will go away if you just take it.

Later, Liz waits for non-existent instructions from the secret service that will raise her from her bed, walk her to the nurse's counter, and say "I'm ready to take my medication now." She felt relieved, everyone had been telling her she could get out of there as soon as she took her medication, and she had been waiting for instructions as to when she could. Finally, they had come.  ¶ 14:46 0 Comments

  The doctor doubted that I heard voices, which makes me wonder then, if I wasn't hearing voices, what exactly was I hearing? If it wasn't voices that were tormenting me on those three particularly rough afternoons what was it? Was it my hallucinations* of telepathy, or beliefs in mind control and supernatural forces that led me to believe I was hearing voices? Pyschosomatic? (Could you blame me?)

Dr Mark is coming up to Gosford on Tuesday. Will sneak off to pub to sit and watch him drink. I've decided to stay away from everything including alcohol. The majority of people don't do drugs, thus I have no reason to feel left out after my decision to never again try them/do them/eat them/swallow them/snort/smoke/inhale them. I'm really enjoying using italics today.

Today we went to Brian and Laleen's for lunch. Fortunately some members of my family are not alien to mental illness. Speaking of the associated problems of mental illness and it's implications, here is a useful slogan to remember for all people who happened to be under the cow when it decided to take a dump: Of all the illnesses out there, why the HELL did I have to get stuck with MENTAL ILLNESS?

*edit: should be 'delusions'. hallucinations I think are when your senses deceive you.  ¶ 19:17 0 Comments

  Well here I am at my Mum's house in Gosford. My first complete day of freedom from the nuthouse. I imagined having to beg them for freedom, plead with them to announce me sane, when I had my Case Review (I composed a little speech the night before that went along the lines of "I have been properly rehabilitated" just like in the movies... Frances Farmer, I feel for you!) but they really are all there to help you and get you out of there as soon as possible. It was my first time in hospital and OK, I get the message about Hospital Food. Plane food is heaps better. Mum said in private hospitals they offer you a menu and give you chocolate mudcake for morning tea. I'm now free to eat when I want now which is nice. It's nice being in Gosford. I'm still feeling a little brain-damaged, apparently each psychosis you have leaves its little mark on you. I'll be right. I'm just SO GLAD they let me out. It means I'm officially sane.  ¶ 14:53 0 Comments