Denial

I have been thinking about writing this blog for ages – but time passes and I sort of forget about it.

The events during the past week though have reminded me of this and perhaps it just the right time to my thoughts on paper.

Have you noticed the initial responses from people close to those US school killers and the guy who let rip in the Spiderman movie? Comments vary from: he was a quiet person, loved his family, a genius (oh yeah), his mother loved him, didn't have many friends, shy, withdrawn – I could go on forever. It is only after the initial shock of the shooting that the ‘dirt’ comes out. These people were actually aggressive, deranged, anti-social, and difficult to get on with, angry, chips on shoulders the size of the Statue of Liberty, abusive, tortured cats when they were kids and probably still do, and so on. And people (their parents and friends) were scared of them. And they owned guns. Well, in the US it is pretty easy to get a gun but none of their friends or family took the damn things away from them – or asked the police to take them away. You can’t tell me no-one knew about the guns. But, the fact is the folks and friends probably were bloody terrified to confront these little psychos.

The scariest things though, are that the nearest and dearest live with it and put on a ‘brave face’ and pretend to the outside world that everything is OK. I do understand that is quite difficult to say to an outsider that you kid terrifies the living daylights out of you and you can’t stand the little sod anyway. Parents aren't allowed to make those sorts of confessions are they? So what happens? Well one day the wheels come off and all hell breaks loose; people of left shaking their heads wondering what the heck happened. I can tell you that these things don’t just happen – they have been on simmer and a rolling boil for a long time but no-one says anything.

Six months ago I had an experience that I will share with you: An old friend phoned me. He was at the airport, on his way to the UK. He asked if I could pop over there because he would like to say Hi. It was 10.00 on a Tuesday morning, I was at work so I said I wouldn't be able to and my whole day was busy. We chatted for a bit and I thought that was that. At 3 in the afternoon I get a call to say he has cancelled his flight and booked for a week’s time – can he come and stay. He obviously heard my hesitation – he got a bit narky and said he was now in a sticky spot….So I collected him from the airport. I knew the minute he got in the car that something was very wrong. The first thing he said was ‘have you read about me in the papers today’. I said no and why should I have? To cut a long story short – he was psychotic, he was hearing voices, hallucinating, communing with little men on Mars and convinced that he was being tracked via his cell phone – who was doing the tracking was a mystery. He was intent on telling me that he was OK, that he was cured (long history of mental illness) but just took his meds to keep ‘them’ happy. The meds he takes are Lithium and Serenace. Google ‘Serenace’ and see for yourself what it is used for. He also said that the police had given him a licence for his gun, yes a gun licence – so therefore he must be fine. I told him he couldn't go to London and said he should go back to his family in the small town. So he phoned his mother to tell her that Liz thought he wasn't well enough to go to the UK. What did his mother say? She said: Is Liz qualified to give this diagnosis? Of course I am not qualified to give a psychiatric diagnosis – but hearing voices, seeing things, talking to little men on Mars, being terrified to turn on your phone because they are tracking you ….Nay, I’m not qualified at all. But I do know that something isn't quite right.

So a day or 2 later Lisa and I managed to get him on a plane back to his family – they were a bit miffed but there was not much they could about it – I said I refused to have in with me a minute longer and he was their responsibility and they should book him into the nearest facility until he got this psychotic episode was over.

Now I fully understand that the family were probably relieved when he flattened his Mum’s credit card to buy his ticket to the UK and he jumped on the plane to Johannesburg. But how could they let him go to the UK; he was clearly ‘not well’ when he got on the plane (and flattened his Mum’s credit card). And how could they get miffed with me because I refused to look after him. How can they let him have a gun? They were happy to ‘get rid’ of the problem onto me and the UK for a bit. Have they actually told him his behavior is just not on – probably not.

And so we get to the week that kept the entire world sitting on the edge of its seat watching the Oscar drama play itself out.

And the dirt started hitting the headlines – people say he is an aggressive, out of control, raging, and arrogant person. His family say he is a sweet as pie. Well go figure. Sweet as pie just isn't so – sweet as pie doesn't need all those guns. The reports of his aggression, previous fights he has had, his room mate at the Olympic village had to move because of Oscar’s rages,  and so on kinda says he wasn't as sweet as pie. Why didn't his dad and siblings say anything – they must have observed this. Why didn't they tell him his behavior was not on. Why didn't they get him some help – even just some anger management or something like that? Why didn't his agent/manager (how must have been collecting a packet from his earnings) insist he have some counselling – he also must have seen this out of control behavior.

I’ll tell you why. Typically no one wants to tell ‘the difficult person’ that their behavior stinks – they don’t want to upset the person. They might even be scared of the person. As far as offending the difficult person is concerned – well who really cares at the end of the day if he is offended – he is damn offending to everyone around him….

Same goes for the guy who bashes his wife – yes, you can indeed get involved and tell the guy that you will stuff him up if he does it again. Yes, you can tell the alcoholic that his behavior drinking are offensive and he has to get help. And yes, you can tell the nut case and his family to go get help.

For as long as we remain in denial of what is happening in our lives or the lives of our family and friends; for as long as we keep silent and pretend that everything is OK, or say that  we don’t want to get involved because it is  none on our business, the abuse, beatings, rapes, killings will continue.

We cannot be in denial any more.

A few little things

 Your name in print:

I don’t care who you are but it is really nice to see your name in print.

Towards the end of last year I was interviewed for a couple of hours by a young journalist from a magazine called Modern Athlete. They wanted to do a story about my Camino walk. The journalist was really interested and found most of what I said quite fascinating and she hung on every word – well I like to think she did! I submitted photos with smart captions and waited to see the story – only to see it in full glorious technicolor, finished and published in the magazine. I didn't get to proof it.

So why aren't I jumping up and down with excitement and waving it under everyone’s noses? Well, there are few things that aren't quite correct but the one ‘error’ that has me blushing and, lets face it, cringing a bit is the sentence that says I said ‘I ate like a pig every day’. Whereas what I said in reply to the question about the type of food I ate along the way was: ‘I ate a lot of pork…in fact I might have eaten a whole pig by the time I got to Santiago (joke, joke, joke)’

Where is Mac when you need him.

Good reads:

I have just finished reading The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak. Read it, it is wonderful

Another really good read is: The Garden of the Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng – a fascinating story and you will be surprised by some of the characters that pop up. A friend said it could have done with a bit more editing but I enjoyed it tremendously. One of the books you don’t want to end.

Good jazz evening

On the last Saturday of each month there is a jazz night, the Classic Jazz maters entertain for a few hours at the Radium Beer Hall on Louis Botha Avenue. The music is fabulous and the Radium has a large menu and the food is great (and reasonable). It is a lovely way to spend an evening. The music is of the bandstand style and I can guarantee that you will know almost all the songs.