Smoke and Mirrors: Millionaire Hotseat

I attended a day's taping of Channel 9's "Millionaire Hotseat" show recently.  It's a spinoff show based on the original "Who wants to be a Millionaire" quiz show.  Over 5-6 hours there were 5 episodes shot.  Not one soul won any more than $1000, the consolation prize for when even the mere $10,000 question falls through, let alone the glorious Million.

I felt excited entering the set at first (having gone through a long and boring process of signing a disclaimer form stating I won't divulge the contents of the show...hmmm...wonder if I'm in breach saying this?  Ah well Farkit..).  The warehouse holding the set was dark and shrouded in a bit of artificial fog.  The set itself was tiny, with around 100 spectator seats crammed together above the floor where the contestants and host sit.  The chairs were crappy plastic bucket seats; even the ones they give contestants are crappy barstools, making them swing their legs in an undignified way; this could be an unnerving tactic, who knows. The overall feeling was that of a "tinny" feeling; the scaffolding holding the audience creaked and swayed a bit.  To top off the cheapness of the show they "treated" us all to a lukewarm sausage roll with sauce half way through filming.  It was stodgey and indigestible.  Ugh.

The warm-up guy Andrew Pope is very good at his job.  In quick time he was able to manipulate the audience to clap quietly, louder and then at ballistic levels, all based on his hand movements in front of the stage.  There were no Applause signs; this guy acts like a conductor.  Having said this his "witty" repartee in between takes was arrogant, sexist and belittling.  He loved making fun of people from other countries who were in the audience.  He also made two young girls go against each other in a mock quiz competition, asking them to yell "bong" and "bang" for their buzzer. The embarrassed "bang" girl went red when he sleazed: "so...you ever had a bang?".  He was vile.

On the plus side was the host Eddie Maguire.  Eddie polarises people being president of the Collingwood Football Club, along with comments he makes in the media.  Whatever you think of Eddie the man, Eddie the professional is just that: consumate.  He does not miss a beat.  When it comes time to take a break for 3 minutes when the show has an ad-break written in, he grabs a microphone and answers questions from the audience.  He is a quick thinker and gives as good as he gets.  I came away from that taping with admiration for him being such a good performer.  

So yeah: a plus for Eddie, a big minus for the warm up guy and overall disenchantment for a show which looks so tight and polished when you see it on the telly.  It gave me new insight into what people mean when they say "the magic of television": having a way to make something which looks crappy in real life come out looking respectable on the small screen.

Federal Budget cuts and Ambulance Call-Out Rates: it doesn't add up

Wayne Swan, the Federal Treasurer, announced Australia's budget today.

Just as I hear from my Drug and alcohol counsellor today that her position has been cut due to Federal Budgetary cuts to the sector, I read statistics from "The Age" newspaper online today (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) that ambulance callouts for Alcohol and Drug-related incidents are on the rise.

I read with interest that a fair portion also comes from people on prescription medication, and was surprised to see anti-psychotics up there, being one who takes them for schizoaffective disorder.

My counsellor works for an Eastern Suburbs community-based organisation which is entirely dependant on state and federal funding.  There is massive demand on their services.  They have had to cut  their Family services and Youth services due to these Federal Budget cuts.

So what will this mean?  Probably more domestic violence.  More youth suicides.  More suicides in general.  More accidental overdoses.  More kids dropping out of school.  More job losses due to chronic addiction.  More car crashes.  More car licenses lost due to being over the legal limit.  More carnage.

What does the Gillard Labor Government hope to achieve in their latest Federal Budget announcement?  A government in surplus.  An economy in the black.  That wins votes.  Doesn't matter that an economy in the red can still operate ok and not go into recession: ask any economist.  But the Gillard government is unpopular and needs every vote it can get.  And the perception that a Labor government can manage taxpayers money as well as the Right-Wing Liberal government could.

Forget about the failed Housing Insulation scheme which saw rogue operators taking advantage of unskilled workers putting bodgey insulation into homes who sought the rebate; forget about the botched "Building the Education Revolution" which saw unwanted halls being erected in schools nationwide.  

No, no, no: Labor knows how to divvy out your hard-earned money.  Just look at the wunderkind scheme of the National Broadband Network....just a shame only a small percentage of the nation will be able to afford to use it.  Or would want to.

And don't think I'm some Liberal Brown-Noser: they are a worse pack of jokers than Labor are.  They make life good for the rich and thats it.

I hate politics.  I used to vote with a degree and hope and earnestness.  Ha!!!  I reckon if you looked Insincerity up in any decent dictionary it would read REF: Politician.

Not even the Greens get my vote.  It's Hee-Haws all the way with me.

The misunderstood tag of schizoaffective

When I give talks to schools and the like about having schizoaffective disorder, I describe it as being like a cross between Bipolar and Schizophrenia, which can be misleading.  It may seem as though I deal with depression, mania and psychosis together on a concurrent or revolving basis.  That is not, and has never been the case with me.

To divvy it up, I am depressed (to varying degrees) around 92% of the time; manic (to varying degrees) around 7.5% of the time, leaving a paltry 0.5% of my days and nights in a psychotic or paranoid way.  These stats can fluctuate dramatically when I get significantly unwell (eg: borderline hospital to being in hospital).  I should add that I've only been hospitalised 3 times in my life, and been significantly unwell maybe a dozen times.

The mix between mania, depression and psychosis for me might be more evenly spread if I didn't comply with medication, or if the meds I were on weren't working for me.  I've been on the following meds for over 18 months and have been stable;

Morning: 200mg Epilim (Sodium Valproate; a mood stabiliser);
               375mg Lithium (mood stabiliser)
                30mg Cymbalta (anti-depressant)
                Vitamin D capsules x2
         
Evening:  1000mg Epilim
               375mg Lithium
       
Pre-Bed:  12.5mg Zyprexa (primarily an anti-psychotic, but also with anti-depressant qualities).

My doctor has me on low levels of Lithium and Epilim in tandem as they can cause damage to the kidneys and liver respectively; hence a smaller dose of each to minimise harm.  He's mentioned there's a new antipsychotic from Europe which is weight neutral that he's interested in trying on me in the future.  We tried Zeldox (another antipsychotic) and it made my leg "ping" up involutarily so we stopped it.  Basically I've got to seek alternatives to Zyprexa as it makes me ferociously hungry and sees me ballooned out at around 86kgs; most of it in my torso.  Heart risk, diabetes 2 risk etc etc.

Getting back to my initial point: the spread of mood and thoughts, which, by the way, is an accurate way of describing schizoaffective disorder: it is a mood (bipolar) and thought (schizoid) disorder.  For me the mood side of it has been socially alienating: unbearable when severely depressed or manic.

The one which has hit me in the guts harder has been when I become severely paranoid and lose logic in my thought patterns.  It's not a Beautiful Mind at all: it's horrific, distorted, sinister and terrifying.  There's nothing like losing logic, even if it is for only a few days or so.  I lost it for months back in 2003.  I see it lost in a colleague of mine at Lifeworks where I'm doing a quit smoking course.  This woman gets a monthly injection for her schizophrenia, and I sense her fragility and the way she seems so raw to all her surroundings.  I feel for her.

Alone and ruminating;

Very flat today.  It's like someone has put a needle in my artery and extracted all the positivity and energy from my system.  Heavy arms & legs.  So so sad.  It's been building for a couple of weeks now.  Erupted in tears while trying to sleep last night.  Not sobs, just silent salt water down the cheeks as I looked upward.   Had it not been for Flossy bundled in my left arm like a teddy bear I think I would have cried harder.  She nestled into me tight last night.

I don't feel sorry for myself for feeling depressed; it's a shitty thing, for sure, but I know it won't go on forever.  I'm lucky that way, having only episodic bouts of blackness.  Truth be told I'm usually in some state of greyness unless I am exercising a lot and have things to do without being overwhelmed by the pace of life.  Right now there's little pace to my existence.  I need a job so I can spend money more freely.  Spending money helps me tick the satisfaction boxes in my life.  I wish I could tick the boxes in better ways, such as through socialising or helping others.  In the absence of friends I gain solace from "things".  I think my father is the same.

The volunteering has propped me up a bit the past month, although that will drop off to once a fortnight this month; they have enough volunteers to do this.  The public speaking to students has resumed; I'm to address 400 1st year Psychology students at LaTrobe Uni in a week or so about my lived experience of mental illness.  That should be good, although parking will be a bitch and it's a fair distance away from where I live.  I might have to re-jig the talk a bit but feel comfortable enough to do so without major rehearsals needed.  That's the odd thing: for someone who is such a numbnut with other people in a social context I can hold my own when giving a talk.  Weird.

Otherwise have been doing a Quit Smoking Course at Lifeworks; started off ok, but the past week's worth of flatness has seen me smoke indoors again and hence smoke more.  My plan was to cut down with a view to quitting on Sept 1st.  It still could be that way; will be hard but I can try.

The only other events written in my diary are the various appointments with doctors, therapists etc.  Also my friend Diana has come here a couple of times the past month and has offered to come here next Friday to help me cut back some large tree branches out the back.  I really appreciate Diana.  She turned 40 last Sunday.  I invited her to my house a few days prior and made her pancakes for lunch and an indian tandoori veggie curry for dinner with meruigues  for dessert.  I gave her a salt crystal lamp as a present, which she liked.  I'm glad she is my friend.  She's my only close friend at the moment.  Tina had problems with her back and spent some time in hospital last month; she emailed me to say she's home again and that she will contact me.  I know Tina: she means for me to hold off until she's ready to talk; she can be quite ferocious when grumpy and being in severe pain would make her grumpy.  So I sent her an email back wishing her well.

I have another, more distant friend with a birthday this Tuesday.  I've known Carol for all my life but we tend only to catch up once a year and ring each other on our birthdays.  Last year she texted me instead of ringing.  Ouch.

Then my family; well they're always busy.  My sister and her hubby and kids live in a furious vortex of activity; it's hard to edge into their busy lives even on a bi-monthly basis.  Mum and Jeff I have more chance with, but even they are pretty busy for octogenarians.  I'm trying to phone Mum earlier in the day for our catch-up phonecalls as I am finding that by 5.30pm she's starting to be fatigued, vague and a bit scatty.  I would ring her 20 times for every one time she rings me.  Other than to ring Mum I hardly ever use my phone.  I'm a very solitary person.  Very.  At times like feeling flat, this hurts a bit.  But when I'm more buoyant it doesn't get to me.  That's just the way I am.

I don't tend to share about being flat to friends and family (except Diana who understands because she has chronic depression); I figure thats what the counsellors are for.  And the odd blog like this.  It really is therapeutic to write it out; it mightn't make for great reading but it stops me balling it inside.  Or sitting and drinking and listening to Radiohead.  Or Portished.  Or Tom Waits.  Good music, but dark and broody; allowing me waaaaaay too much rumination time.

Rumination can be ok if done positively; it tends to get a bad rap.  I guess positive rumination tends to be labelled "being philosophical".  At the end of the day it's still sitting on your arse and thinking about stuff whilst alone.  Whether that's a good or bad way to spend your time depends on the individual.

But yeah, negative rumination.....getting upset about the status quo or events of the past...if you don't have some sort of drug to quell the mood it can be like barbed wire across the heart.

 AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH