The Bad And Ugly Of My Parentage

When I say that I love my life, I say that with many grains of salt. Although extremely privileged to be supported in the first world, I have also suffered a huge amount as a result of parental neglect and almost 20 years as an involuntary in the Mental Health system in Australia. Although extremely wise and smart, I've been told by some of the highest authorities that I can’t even make basic decisions about my own mental health care. Oh the irony.

So while it's true to say that I wish I had never existed, I remain grateful for the person that I can be. Those two statements are not in conflict.

It's also true to say that, yes, there are many parents out there who appreciate having their kids. My argument is not against these people's happiness, but against the absolute hypocrisy that having kids entails. If you think I'm joking, think about it, as follows, from my own experiences. 

Firstly, my dad. Having been a medical GP for some half a century, he owns multiple properties, has an estimated fortune of a few million dollars, and lives with my mum in one of the richest suburbs in Canberra (Australia). When I was a kid he never talked about sex with myself or my older brother; we had to find-out for ourselves. My parents also never gave me responsibility for anyone else, such as a young sibling or animal companion, which probably would have taught me a lot more, but of course there are grave ethical concerns about more and more dependants.

My dad has always been a very weird, macho kind of person and has never been great at expressing himself or answering to me about really important things. Following a few times when he slapped me when I was still a kid, for 15 or 20 years I lived in fear of him, in the same house, and when I was 25 he betrayed me to the Mental Health Authority, borne on the demands of several armed police officers who entered my room in the wee hours and trucked me away to mental hospital.

This was the first of 17 involuntary hospitalisations I have incurred over a period of 11 years. My parents have never expressed the slightest regret about their role in this, nor do they treat me with compassionate respect for my disabled classification as a schizophrenic. For being put on dangerous prescription drugs and forced to attend numerous empty appointments with clinicians, I have wasted hours and hours of some of my life's best years brooding over why the Mental Health system is so wicked. As for my parents, they have hardly batted an eyelid or spoken up for my freedoms. Most recently, my dad actually taunted me about my mental illness—and yes, as I mentioned, he has been a doctor for decades.

But the plot thickens, because in 2012 when I was in the thick of my Mental Health obligations, I was also trying to finance my imminent next escape from Mental Health by selling street magazines. (You may have heard of The Big Issue—I was selling that at a pretty decent rate during my heyday as a vendor.) On a few separate occasions, I would change my earnings at the cashier of the local club's poker machine area. And can you believe it, I saw my dad AND my mum gambling on those machines!

In short...if you didn’t get the drift...my parents were up to their necks in money and never gave a shit about me or my welfare. They had, infact, become the cause of my demise and suffering at the hands of the authorities. During my itinerant years I was moving between hospital dormitories where people would literally piss in the rooms, to hostels where I paid about $25 per night with people banging and screaming into the wee hours of the night. Life was terrible, but my parents were so oblivious to my situation that they gambled, travelled to faraway places such as Singapore and China, drove their cars, and lived luxuriously in a large house.

Meanwhile, one of my cousins was intent on starting a family with kids. I don’t have much information on that, but I do know that my mum would visit him and his babies and enjoy good times pampering the littlies and paying almost no attention to my own pleas for help and support. Fuck my cousin's decision, because I am pretty sure a lot of the money that my mum might have deigned upon me has ended-up supporting her "cute" grand nephew.

And although I have never held a great job other than with The Big Issue, I have managed to get by on a modest government pension and accumulate a reasonable financial existence. This is no flukeshot, it takes a great amount of good habits and discipline to fare reasonably on a low income and be remotely proud of having a decent life. I choose not to give two fucks about things I can’t do much about. I choose to be kind to all beings that are able to benefit from my kindness. Life is complicated, but only because there are fuckers in this world like my parents who cannot read the pleas of those who suffered for such a hellish long time.