Marcus Einfeld has bipolar, court hears

If you read the article, you'll discover the lawyers for this particular former judge have brought up the possibility that he has a long-term, previously undiagnosed bipolar mood disorder, and are offering this as a reason why his two year minimum sentence should be altered.

From the article: Einfeld is serving a minimum two-year jail term after pleading guilty to perverting the course of justice and making a false statement under oath to avoid a speeding fine.

The 70-year-old claimed that an American academic was driving his car when it was caught speeding, despite knowing she died the previous month.

I don't have bipolar disorder myself. What I do have is a chronic mental illness, which so far hasn't prompted me to do anything illegal, or to consider myself above the law. Strangely enough, there are a lot of mentally unwell people out there (and out here, come to that) who go through their entire damn lives without once coming to the attention of the police as anything other than victims of crime. But when mental illness is mentioned in the media, it's generally in the context of someone claiming a previously undiagnosed chronic mental illness which apparently severely affected them only at the time of the crime they're being charged with, and never before or since.

Now, it may be that Mr Einfeld was under the affect of either a manic period, or maybe a depressive episode, when he said something damn stupid in order to try and avoid a flippin' speeding fine. Or maybe he was an ordinary enough bloke who just didn't want to have to cop the fine, and chose to make a stupid lie to the police about who was driving his car at the time it was speeding. Having made this stupid lie, he then stuck by it, and wound up getting the book thrown at him, particularly since he was a flippin' Federal Court Judge and therefore should have known better than to try it in the first bloody place. But either way, the mania or the depression didn't make him do something so bloody stupid.

If Mr Einfeld has had bipolar mood disorder for a long period of time (and has coped with it admirably, one presumes, since he's now seventy and nobody apparently noticed until this psychiatrist he's talking to now raised the option) and has been dealing with his demons in solitude, that's a tragedy. I know depression is enough of a hell on its own, and I have every sympathy for the man. But being mentally unwell isn't an excuse for illegal behaviour, and it shouldn't be claimed as such, or reported that way.

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Current Mood: annoyed

Okay, it's been three weeks since the major meltdown, one week from the mini-meltdown which was averted by immersing myself in FF:Dissidia to the point of obsession (I'm now dreaming Dissidia battles... time to cut the playing down a bit). I'm vaguely sane at present (which reminds me - meds!) and hoping to stay so, even though the universe appears to be trying to make me go completely bonkers. My give-a-damn still isn't, so I'm currently behind on cooking, cleaning and doing anything other than levelling up characters on the PSP.

Dissidia is ... interesting. I've managed to get one character up to level 100 (Cloud) and I'm working on my second (Squall). Discovered that the guy who's voicing Squall isn't the same guy who voiced him in Kingdom Hearts, which says a lot about my hearing, doesn't it? The story mode is sorta fun, although there's a limited amount of enjoyment I can get from it (mostly because I get bored by running through the same thing over and over) - so far I've found the best fun comes from running through story mode for each character once, then coming back and doing it again after they've levelled up a bit (I ran Cloud back through his on level 80 or so, which was a bit like swatting flies with a sledgehammer... for some reason I got a perfect score for section completion after that; Squall went back through at level 30). So far I've beaten Chaos once (he's a right whatsit to beat - three-stage boss, so you have to kill him three times rather than just the once) and seen the final little FMV cutscene, which is cute.

I think one of the things I like about Dissidia is they have the age balance right for Cloud and Squall. One of my pet peeves in KH fandom is that people tend to assume Squall is older than Cloud (probably because Squall has a deeper voice). In fact, it's t'other way round - Cloud starts his game at age 21, while Squall is a good four years younger at age 17 - and if you assume each game took 1 year to run that has Cloud ending up at age 22, with Squall coming in at age 18. Advent Children takes place 2 years after the initial Final Fantasy game, so in Advent Children, Cloud is at least 23. Dissidia Squall looks younger than Dissidia Cloud, which makes me feel all is right with the world again. And yes, I am a picky fangirl.

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Current Mood: okay

Gods, where to start? It's been a bit of a frantic week-and-a-bit. Let's see - how about I give a rundown of "good things and bad things" and then an expansion in TL;DR below.

Good things:

• Meds packaged in blister pack, Silver Chain stuff almost up and running.


• Purchased Dissidia on Tuesday, already 9/10ths of the way through the initial part of Story Mode


• Heard from my folks, they're coming back to Perth early

• Still depressed


• Court hearing on Tuesday resulted in an order to hand over the house


• Still unemployed

Current Mood: stressed

It's been about a week since I wrote the "I need help" post, and about a week since the breakdown which prompted it. Since then, I've had a few things happen. I've contacted the Silver Chain people about getting some assistance with ensuring I take my medication regularly. From what I've read on their website, they're probably the best people to provide the kind of help I need, which is someone dropping in on maybe an "every second day" basis, in order to ensure I'm taking my meds regularly and getting out of bed at a reasonable hour. They've returned my contact, and advised me to get a referral from a GP, which I did on Thursday last week. Now I have to wait for them to get back to me again, and let me know whether it's possible for this to happen or not.

I'm back to taking my medication, and I'm going to try and keep consistent with it, even though I know I have problems with this (see the above paragraph). So far I'm on day two, and I'm suffering the understandable side-effects of restarting psych medication after about two weeks without it. Or in other words, I'm dizzy, dopey, and a bit distracted at present. This too will pass, but at the moment I'm trying not to move too much too quickly.

( More under the fold )

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Current Mood: wheee!

Amanda "Brocky" Stachewicz had everything: a loving family with children, a great career as a doctor and a home in the western suburbs. The former St Hilda's schoolgirl got top marks for everything and was beautiful inside and out.

But at her funeral at her old school in March, mourners were stunned to hear about how she felt before she died.

"I'm tired and I don't want to suffer any more," Brocky wrote before she committed suicide.

Her schoolmate Karen Heagney is running in November's New York marathon to remember her friend and do something for mental illness.

"Depression is a hidden disease," Karen said this week, as she limbered up for a training session at Perry Lakes. "If you suffer from a physical disease it's visible and tangible and people ask how you're going. With depression often no one knows."

This is an excerpt from an article which appeared in our free local paper[1] this week. It was one of the things which pushed me over the edge into absolute screaming hysterical fury today, and got me breaking down.

( More under the fold )

[1] Mosman Cottesloe Post, Vol 36 No 37; September 19 2009.

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Current Mood: depressed

Found this one on the ABC ticker last night:

Robb takes leave over depressive illness

One of the Opposition Front Benchers in the federal House of Representatives here in Australia has a biochemical disorder called diurnal variation, which is a depressive illness. He's taking three months leave of absence.

Now, when I first saw that, I didn't have a clue what the heck "diurnal variation" meant in context of depressive illnesses (I knew it meant "daily changes" but heck, that's a pretty broad term). So, off I went to Google, and discovered it's the technical term for feeling like hammered crap in the mornings. At which point I went "yes, and?", because I've had that for over twenty years now, and I was under the strong impression it was pretty damn normal. Then again, I'm depressed, so are both my parents and a fair chunk of my relations, and possibly this skews things. My second reaction was along the lines of "ooh, there's a word for everything in this discipline!", because I hadn't been aware my feeling worried and anxious when I woke up (and the consequent wanting to go right back to sleep and stay there for another few hours) had a name, aside from "oh shit, another bloody morning".

Someone really should point out to Mr Robb's spokesweasel that using the big words for everything doesn't exactly win you the huge sympathy points in this day and age. Far too many people know google, and know how to use it - and many have stronger google-fu than I (my google-fu extends as far as being able to narrow down my search by picking appropriate terminology to search on).

But at least Mr Robb is getting lots and lots of sympathy for feeling like crap in the mornings now, and there's supportive messages from all and sundry, and lots of people saying "yeah, we're on your side, we'll keep your old job for you" and similar. So I'm going to try not to feel like I've been cheated by just having been told "suck it up and live with it" since I was fourteen, and get on with my life. I'll also try not to feel cheated by realising I have to hide my depressive illness, because otherwise I won't be able to get a job short of begging.

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Current Mood: annoyed

Well, for some reason getting out the two longish pieces I've been working away at on and off over the past year or so and doing some more of the epicyclical rewrites I'm prone to (I call it editing, because that sounds ever so much more purposeful) appeared to have worked to dispel the cranky mood. By the time midnight came around, I was able to kick off the download without wanting to bite the update program, and when I eventually went to bed at close on 3am this morning, I was just fine.

What was even better, I'd added some new content to both of the pieces I'd opened, which really helps. One of them's up to 24,000 words plus, while the other's only at 5,000 or so, but they're both going to be walloping great bastards when (if) they're eventually completed.

I'm still fine this morning, having created my first character on City of Heroes and completed the initial missions. It's an interesting little game, that one. I think I shall see about creating a second character, and see whether I can get any further. One of the only complaints I have is that if you're playing a trial account (as I am) there's a persistent little box in the dead centre of the screen telling you you're playing the trial, and asking whether you want to buy the full version. Mind you, I can live with that for a week or so, while I decide whether or not I want to keep playing. So far the answer is "yes", but that may alter.

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Current Mood: hopeful

I'm cranky. I don't know why. I've been taking my meds all week like a good girl, so in theory I shouldn't be feeling this irritable. Unfortunately, this isn't theory, and I'm currently feeling tetchy enough to bite the heads off live chickens just in order to satisfy my craving for something destructive to do.

The annoying bit is that I really don't know why I'm so cranky. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that I cancelled my WoW account today (and got rather irritated at their cutesy "you made the peon cry" bit in there, while I was at it). Unfortunately, I didn't actually have much choice in the matter - Blizzard appear to have chosen not to continue supporting the graphics hardware I'm using, and I'm not in a financial position to be able to pay largeish amounts to upgrade my laptop just so I can play one damn game. I went looking around at other MMORPGs, and decided to give "City of Heroes" a try, but installing it requires downloading the software, which means I have a flippin' 10 hour download waiting for me. Yays. To make matters more interesting still, Himself decided to confide in me that we're coming up to the limit for our bandwidth for the peak hours (ie everything between 8am and midnight - off peak is between midnight and 8am) so if I want to do this download, I have to wait until midnight to kick it off. Hoo-fucking-ray.

Ach, I think I'll get out the bits of fiction I'm working on and see whether I can come up with anything for those. After all, if I'm going to be cranky, bad-tempered and frustrated, I may as well do it to some purpose.

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Current Mood: cranky