Manic, OCD, psychotic – using words around mental health appropriately

Have you ever heard someone say ‘my kids are manic’ or ‘I am so OCD about my house.’? As a mental health advocate, I come across these things all the time and they really annoy me. I have schizoaffective disorder – diagnosed by a large number of psychiatrists over many years. Part of schizoaffective disorder is mood issues – depression and mania. As someone who has experienced mania on many occasions, I can attest that there is a big difference between a kid running around high on sugar and actual mania.

When I am manic talk nonstop, expend – and have – a huge amount of energy, make problematic decisions, don’t sleep, have many epiphanies and eureka moments and spend lots of money. When I am happy manic everything feels wonderful and exciting. I can also be angry manic – this has only happened once for me and it was very frightening. Mania is a definite problem, and it goes way beyond a sugar high!

The other one which really irritates me is misuse of ‘psychosis’ and ‘psychotic.’ This is absolutely everywhere and especially in the media and popular culture. The term ‘psychotic’ is used interchangeably with violent or psychopathy. I have a psychotic illness and I can assure you it doesn’t result in violence. More in me being terrified and the world being confusing and frightening, like being in a waking nightmare. People experiencing psychosis are often at risk of violence and abuse themselves.

The misuse of psychotic is problematic for many reasons. To my mind the worst is that it demonises people with psychotic illness and makes it difficult for us to talk to others about our illness for fear of judgement.

Another pet peeve around mental health issues and terminology is the incorrect use of OCD. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a condition which involves high anxiety and often activities like repeatedly checking things, worrying about germs and contamination and compulsively counting. It is not pleasant. While I do not have personal lived experience of this, I have known people with it and it is very unpleasant. So, when someone says ‘I am so OCD’ because they keep a tidy house it irritates me beyond belief. It is rude and invalidating to compare your tidy house to actually having OCD!

My final issue is the use of mental health terms as an insult – ‘that’s mental!’, ‘you’re crazy’ etc. These are so pervasive that even I use some of them on occasion before correcting myself. There are parallels of this within the Queer and neurodivergent communities (‘that’s gay’ or ‘that’s so autistic.’) These are not OK. Neurotype, sexuality and mental health are not insults! This issue is everywhere and it demonstrates a lack of understanding and respect.

A lot of these misuses of terminology relate to popular culture and people having a lack of understanding the meaning of the terms. I try to address this issue with gently correcting people and sharing information on the correct usage of mental health terms. I am also out loud and proud about my illness and experiences I have as a result of it. I understand not everyone can do that.

My lovely GP, advocacy and doctors who metaphorically break your toilet!

I had an appointment with my GP today. I have been seeing her for almost twenty years. She is an absolute legend, and I couldn’t imagine seeing another GP. In a city where bulk billing by doctors is almost unheard of my GP regularly bulk bills me – especially after I have been in hospital. She is thorough and caring and knowledgeable. If all doctors were like her the world would be an amazing – and healthy – place.

Sadly, not all doctors are like my GP! I don’t want to criticise the whole profession but over my 31 years of having schizophrenia and my lifetime of being AuDHD I have a lengthy list of unhelpful doctors who evidently weren’t listening to the commandment to ‘first do no harm and then do no harm’! The scary thing when a doctor gets it wrong or is disrespectful and doesn’t listen is that they have a lot of power and the impact can actually damaging or sometimes even fatal. Firstly, they have a lot of power over your health including with diagnoses and medication. Imagine if I went to see a doctor and they told me I didn’t need my schizophrenia meds? The impact of that on me would almost certainly involve me getting really unwell and having to take a couple of years out of my life to recover, including many months in hospital. The other element of power that doctors have in many countries is a high level of respect and prestige around their position. This is fine and often well-deserved, but it does mean that if there is an issue with a doctor being harmful or negligent people are less likely to speak up.

In my own experience psychiatrists are probably the worst culprits for poor practice by doctors. I often joke that I killed two psychiatrists – don’t worry, I didn’t actually harm them, they just died, but both of them treated me badly so when they passed, I didn’t feel much need for grief. Both of these doctors were negligent and arrogant and didn’t listen to their patients or their patients’ families (well that was true in my experience, and I imagine probably others they treated may have had similar issues). When I was younger and first needed to access mental health services, I was extremely vulnerable. I had drug addiction issues, was homeless and was recently diagnosed with schizophrenia. I was also autistic, ADHD and Queer and an ex-prisoner. Yup, I ticked a fair number of intersectional boxes! What this meant – among other things – was that my capacity to self-advocate was pretty much zero.

Fast forward 30 years and I am big and tough and extremely bolshy. I can absolutely advocate for myself even if I am unwell with psychosis – and for others if needed. I still need to go to hospital fairly regularly due to my illness, but when I do, I am much more able to advocate for myself. There is still a power imbalance between me and the doctors, but I always aim to be in control of my own care. I have a bunch of advocacy strategies which help get my needs met.

I am thinking I should probably share some of my tips to help others! A few of the strategies I use when accessing services are:

I do not feel less empowered or important than the doctors. They are on my team, and their role is to use their expertise to support me to recover. We are equal partners in leading the project which is my supporting my positive mental health and helping me to recover
I always make a list prior to seeing doctors – including questions I want to ask them, and what symptoms I am experiencing and what my concerns are, how long I am likely to be in hospital etc
If something is causing sensory issues in hospital, such as lighting or noise, I will raise this with staff
If something seems wrong (for example when a nurse accidentally swapped my notes with my roommate and gave me her diagnosis instead of mine), I will follow up with whoever is in charge
If I want something (reasonable – such as to be transferred to a different ward) I ask. I might not get it, but I almost certainly won’t get it if I don’t ask!
I don’t have self-stigma around my illness. I am not ashamed of it, and I am happy to talk about it.

I often describe a psychiatrist who is harmful as being like a plumber that you call to fix a leaking tap. But instead of fixing the tap they break your toilet. You don’t ever want to get the doctor who metaphorically breaks your toilet! Thankfully things in public system mental health care in Australia have changed for the better in recent years. Self-advocacy by those accessing services can definitely help. Legislative change can also help. In Canberra where I live we had a new Mental Health Act enacted in 2015 and from my observations it really has made a difference including in the attitudes and approach of psychiatrists.

As I said, if all the doctors were like my GP, the world would be a better place! We all have the opportunity to support those providing treatment for us to be effective and inclusive, respectful and kind – and not metaphorically break the toilet!

Image is Yenn speaking to a room full of psychiatrists

When I had an epiphany or seven – changing ‘states’ and reconciling with all the unhelpful messaging in my past!

I always say that I love a good epiphany. I do tend to have rather a lot of them! Last weekend I attended a workshop which resulted in a whole load of Yennski epiphanies! The workshop was about New Code Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) and it actually changed who I am. I normally struggle to focus at that kind of thing but this event and the approach absolutely spoke to me. I think I may have overcome my trouble with ongoing problematic anxiety. This is Big. Very Big. My capability to overthink, catastrophise and ruminate is epic. Was epic I guess. Prolonged anxiety causes psychosis for me which usually results in me taking at least a year out of my working life and being very scared and confused. I have been trying to address anxiety for my adult life. One very happy and relieved Yennski!

I learned a lot of things at the workshop and two stuck with me strongly – intentionally changing your emotional state and accessing your sense of ‘flow.’ Flow is like autistic passions or monotropism – where you are so focused and engrossed in what you are doing that nothing distracts you. I am in flow a lot of the time, particularly when I am writing or presenting. The workshop looked at how to encourage flow states.

The best thing I learned was the idea that emotional states – including problematic anxiety – can be changed. There are a bunch of strategies for changing ‘stuck’ states but the one I liked best was instead of seeing the worst case scenario why don’t I imagine the best possible outcome? Both are conjecture anyway – we don’t know the future – so why worry about the worst happening? So now instead of worrying I won’t be able to finish my PhD due to being a horrible incompetent student, I can instead imagine myself passing and attending my graduation and being Dr Yennski.

I have had a week of seeing things differently across many areas. One epiphany I had was a bit more complicated and related to how I approach the world on a deep level. You might know that I was raised very Christian – in the Christadelphian church. If you haven’t come across them, think Jehovah’s Witnesses but without the door knocking. I went to church every week, read the Bible every night with my family. We also said grace before dinner every day and I knew with complete certainty that there was a God who loved us and that if I repented from my sinful human ways I would be raised again to the kingdom of God when I died. My idea of this was that I would spend eternity singing hymns and listening to sermons which actually made the prospect of the eternal sleep of death quite appealing! There was also a bunch of strange messaging around politics, Isreal and the end of the world. For fourteen years I was a Christadelphian but it never really worked for me. I remember at age 11 thinking I didn’t want to be an adult Christadelphian woman as I would not get to do anything of relevance in the church. At the time, the role of female church goers could only involve playing the organ, doing the flower arrangement, teaching Sunday school or serving the cuppa after the service. Also I would need to marry a man and have kids – both things that even as a child I knew I really didn’t want. I have been aware on some level that I was not heterosexual or cis gender for as long as I remember, including when I was a small person.

I left the church in 1989 when I was 14. It was something of a relief! However, I brought some vestiges of my Christadelphian childhood with me on my life journey and only very recently realised some of them. I thought didn’t deserve happiness, that I was ‘bad’ by dint of being human and that I should not be proud of my achievements. As a child I got all these difficult and negative messages and they sunk in.

Surprisingly recently I realised the profound lack of logic in what I was raised with. I am fairly certain the Noah’s ark is impossible in a big way and that the garden of Eden is also pretty iffy, logic-wise. As a child I was told by a churchgoer that Cyclone Tracy in Darwin in 1974 happened because the city was named after Charles Darwin! What loving God would send a cyclone to kill and maim people and destroy property because He was being snippy because He didn’t like that a city was named after Charles Darwin? It makes absolutely no sense at all. I now have my own faith but it has taken me a long time to separate my faith as an adult from the beliefs I was brought up with – and I am not even sure I have properly done so yet. I don’t think any of the people giving me what I now view as very unhelpful advice and thinking in my formative years intended to be unpleasant but as they say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions! My thoughts on organised religion are that disagreeing about religion is like arguing about your favourite colour!

So yes, recent Yennski epiphanies:

I can change my emotional state
I can imagine the best case scenario rather than catastrophising – and in fact it is a good idea to do this
I – and everyone else – am the CEO of my own life – I can’t control the ‘economy’ but I can decide what measures to take to navigate it
I deserve happiness
I am not a ‘bad’ person
I can have spirituality without being part of a conservative church – or any church, mosque or temple!
My life now is one I have created influenced by my entire history. I have no blame or judgement about the unhelpful messaging in my younger years
I don’t need to go from 0 to 100 (metaphorically). Sometimes things are at 53 or 28. In fact mostly things are not 0 or 100 at all.
Everything I have now – which is a lot of cool things – was built by me, my talents, my hard work, my determination and motivation. Plus I have the best cat in the world!

“I’m not a bigot – I just disagree with you….”

I recently posted about gender diversity, and someone responded with a hateful comment, so I called them on it and said it was bigotry – because it was! The person said, ‘I am not a bigot. I just disagree with you.’ This got me thinking. Yes, it was true that they disagreed with me, but it was also true that they were a bigot! I am not talking accidental misgendering – I am talking overt hostility and judgement.

The statement ‘I’m not a bigot. I just disagree with you’ is the kind of statement people often make to excuse poor attitudes and behaviour – and try to silence dissent. It often comes from a place of privilege and one of the things about privilege is that privileged people often have no idea that they have privilege! When I say privilege, I mean in the intersectional sense. The main areas of privilege within that context are white, cis gender, heterosexual, non-Disabled, middle-class men. Privilege – and by implication those who are privileged – isn’t ‘bad’ – it just means a person doesn’t face structural disadvantage because they belong to a marginalised group. Saying a person is privileged is not an insult – it is just a description of part of their experience, such as their job or the fact they like ice cream! But one important thing about privilege as it tends to make it difficult for people to know that others are not privileged and face disadvantage and how that makes a person feel. Empathy is a lot easier if you have a shared experience with the other person! Often the lack of a shared experience between someone in a position of privilege means that they might inadvertently say something hurtful without understanding the impact it might have.

This is an important thing to know about bigotry and bias – the difference between intentional and unintentional bias. I have a relative who has all the areas of privilege. He is lovely but frequently says disrespectful things without being aware that he is doing so. This is unpleasant but very different from someone who is intentionally rude or hateful and wants to hurt or blame others.

There is a clear difference between a respectful difference of opinion and intentional hatred and bias.

Some differences of opinion do not relate to bias, but when they do it is often not simply a difference of opinion. And someone saying something intentionally disrespectful goes beyond a mere difference of opinion – it is hateful and rude. So yes, it is a difference of opinion, but it involves a lot more than just an exchange of different ideas. Some words hurt and reflect opinions that are damaging and even dangerous.

People have died because of bigotry and hatred online and in real life. When people accuse me of being overly ‘woke’ or ‘a snowflake’ I challenge this. Firstly, why would people think being inclusive and respectful is a bad thing? Also, I think the real ‘snowflakes’ might just be the people who get all defensive and angry when someone challenges their bigotry! In contrast if I say something rude or disrespectful and someone challenges me on it, I don’t get defensive: I thank them and strive to not make the same mistake another time. I am actually pretty resilient and can manage a lot of unpleasantness from others! However, the number of times people who think people like me are overly sensitive (‘snowflakes’) and then get challenged, it is often them who freak out!

So, by all means disagree with me or others in a respectful manner but please avoid the bigotry and bias – and especially the intentional bigotry and bias! And if in doubt as to whether something you think or say is appropriate or respectful, for example around gender diversity, then maybe ask a person who is trans or non-binary what they think! We are all on a journey of discovery in life. A lot of discovery involves meeting new people with different experiences and attitudes. I like to stay open and flexible to learn new things from the people I meet. That may involve disagreement, but I hope it also involves learning from one another and that disagreement is respectful and promotes growth and understanding and doesn’t fuel hatred.

Finding a home

Today marks exactly four years of my living at Yennski HQ. Since I moved here, I have left three ongoing jobs and gained about 10 other sources of income, written I am not sure how may books but it’s a lot, given a bunch of talks and spent a lot of time cuddling Sunflower the kitty (who has been sitting next to me all morning on my desk waving her tail and making the task of typing difficult but adorable!) I own Yennski HQ – it is mine (well most of it. Some belongs to the bank, and I suspect all of it belongs to Sunflower!!) I am super privileged to own property anyway but even more so as a single neurodivergent and Queer ex-prisoner with schizophrenia who doesn’t have reliable ongoing income at the moment! I love my home and hope I get to stay here forever. I have put photos of my home throughout this post so you can see how awesome it is. I say it is the most Yenn place in the universe except for the inside of my funny Yennski brain.

My privilege in the owning housing space is a relatively new thing. I spent a lot of my 52 years in crisis housing, public housing and mental health residential care. I also spent around four years of my life as a prisoner and I was secondary homeless for many years. I would describe myself as impoverished between 1992-2007 and received Centrelink payments for most of those years – and for one memorable six-month period I had no income at all and lived on my savings of $550! As such you will probably not be surprised that my attitudes around income, uncertainty and saving are strongly influenced by these times in my past and I can worry about money at an Olympic level!

In 2008 I purchased a property for the first time. It was as entry level as you could get as I didn’t have enough money to buy anything nice. The apartment was built in the same year I was born – 1974. I don’t know which one was the worse for wear – me or the property. The plumbing was, well, interesting. Plumbers would stop coming because it was so dodgy and hard to fix. I didn’t have good savings so fixing the plumbing issues was even more stressful. Plus, the anxiety around the maintenance problems caused my mental health to misbehave in the psychosis manner twice, threatening my ability to work and pay the mortgage. When I get unwell like that it can take me years to recover. It was just awful. I firmly believed I would never be able to sell this property and would die there, full of stress and misery.

Thankfully I did sell the apartment in 2020 and in 2022 bought the one I call Yennski HQ. One of the first things I did when I moved here was list the differences between this one and the dodgy one I sold in 2020. There were many… the plumbing at Yennski HQ was sensible and plumbers are happy to come back again, there is a dishwasher, the screen door actually opens, there is a lot more space, the building doesn’t face due west and get all the summer sun, the walls are plasterboard not concrete so I can do useful things like putting picture hooks in and fix the bookcases to the walls! The hot water service is new, and the hot water doesn’t keep cutting out while I am having shower, the place feel homely…. I could go on! I am eternally grateful for my current property. I often worry I won’t be able to pay the mortgage but that is probably irrational anxiety as I am quite good at finding jobs when I need them. And if I needed to find a regular job in the future I imagine I would be able to.

As someone who has been homeless and lived in unsuitable housing for much of my adult life, I fear that happening again. Maybe I need to let that concern go and just enjoy what I have now – not sure. However, reflecting that most people in my various circumstances would not have a lovely home like I do is helpful – well, helpful for me, presumably not others experiencing disadvantage! And maybe Sunflower the kitty will give me the deeds to my house one day!

And today is another Yenniversary – in 2023 I gave a TEDx talk on autism, gender diversity and allyship. Here s the link… enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSC1P49jOec

Where do I know you from? Prosopagnosia or why faces and furniture are alike

I was at the Canberra Disability Expo yesterday. This is one of those events where I get to connect with peers, give a talk and generally rock the casbah. As I was walking out the door a woman said ‘Hi Yenn.’ I responded with ‘I’m sorry. I have face blindness, so I don’t do faces. Where do I know you from?’ She responded, ‘I’m the Minister.’ I managed to complete my faux pas with calling her the name of the previous Disability Minister! We worked it out and she didn’t seem too put out. As an aside I was pretty happy to be recognised as a disability advocate by a Member of Parliament! Although when I recounted the story to a friend, she said ‘yes but you do have rainbow hair’ – fair point, I guess! But the essence of the story is that I don’t recognise faces.

I am not alone. I have a thing called prosopagnosia or face blindness. I once saw it described as the part of the brain that most people use to recognise inanimate objects is the one with people with prosopagnosia use to identify people’s faces. As an example, I have seen a lot of tables, but I would struggle to tell one from another. I am not sure if that is true, but mine is definitely a different approach to facial recognition to most people’s.

I recognise people by other characteristics than their face. Hair is a good one although people often change their hair style or colour which can pose a problem. Life would be so much easier if everyone had name tags!

I suspect that people might think my inability to know them by their face as a sign of significant rudeness. I can attest that it isn’t – it is not because I don’t remember them, just their faces. I am good with names, and I am good at remembering details about people, just not their face! I think in reliably recognise about ten per cent of people through looking at them. I am better with people who look androgynous for some reason. I remember when my brother returned form a couple of years overseas in the early 2000s, I worried that I wouldn’t remember him! I am told that when I was a small child my mum took my brother and me overseas to visit her dad who was dying. My dad stayed behind and when I saw him when I returned after three months, I was terrified of this scary man with a beard! When I was at school this issue would contribute to my very low social status. There were two girls who were bullies and they looked similar. I always got their names wrong and it caused much unpleasantness!

I think of all my neurological differences prosopagnosia is the most frustrating. It is not a common enough issue that people know about it. If I tell someone I am autistic, they will probably have some idea of what that means and will likely have experience of it. However, if I say I can’t recognise faces people tend to be a little baffled.

I used to be highly ashamed of my face blindness and not tell people that I had issues. I would pretend I knew who they were whilst frantically trying to figure out where I knew them from through our conversation. I remember talking to someone for twenty minutes at a gallery opening and not having any idea who they were! Turns out they were the filmmaker who was working on documentary featuring me and three other autistic people!

I am no longer ashamed about this neurological quirk. My brain is beautiful complete with all its little foibles. (OK, schizophrenia probably isn’t a ‘little foible’, but you get the picture). If I meet someone I don’t recognise, I now say, ‘Where do I know you from?’ followed by ‘I have face blindness and I don’t remember people. I am not being intentionally rude. It is just a ‘thing’. Sometimes I follow this with ‘The part in my brain that recognises faces is the same as the part in other people’s brains that recognises furniture. I have met a lot of tables in my time but I don’t generally remember them!’

One issue compounding this is that I have something of a profile. This means more people know me than I know, so often I have never met someone at all, but they know me. Very confusing!

As I get older, I meet others with prosopagnosia. It is nice not to be alone and also not to be ashamed of this. And if I meet you for a second or subsequent time, don’t be surprised if I have no idea whatsoever who you are! It’s not personal.

About Asexuality – and why I have never had an argument with my cat!

I am Asexual and Aromantic. This means I find sexual contact very unpleasant and have no need for a romantic relationship. I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s. When I was younger there were only three available options for sexuality – gay, bi and straight. I figured that women were a little less icky than men in terms of sex so therefore I must be a Lesbian. I also thought people were supposed to be in a relationship, so I had a number of female partners. Most of these relationships were largely platonic due to my strong dislike of sex. I struggled to find partners and felt I was somehow lacking as a human due to this. I didn’t really want a partner but I thought it was what you were ‘supposed’ to do.

A while back and before I came out as Asexual, I read a news story about a man who hadn’t been in a relationship for many years and murdered women as a result of his extreme sense of sexual frustration – and presumably a fair whack of predatory misogyny as well! I thought to myself ‘gee I hope I don’t ever get frustrated so badly that I murder people!’ Then I reflected that I had been single for many years with no sense of sexual frustration at all. If anything, I was happier to be single than to be in a relationship!

Shortly after that I learned about Asexual identities and figured that was probably me. It made a lot of sense to see myself as Asexual and Aromantic. The reason I wasn’t frustrated or lonely was that I didn’t need or want a sexual partner. There was nothing ‘missing’ in my life in terms of sex, dating or relationships.

Asexual folks face discrimination, but it differs from other bigotry around sexuality. Asexual people are seen as being prudish and sad. I am neither prudish nor sad! I am actually very sex positive – I just don’t want anyone doing it with me! People are quite welcome to do whatever they like sexually as long as they are adults, it is consensual and doesn’t include me! People make assumptions as to ’why’ I am asexual. “Did something happen to you?” etc. Does anyone ask that of a heterosexual person?

I am very happy to just live with my kitty Sunflower. I am very happy to own my house by myself. Living alone is awesome. I can watch whatever I want on TV and listen to whatever music I like. I can sleep on whichever side of the bed I choose and go to bed – and get up – whenever I feel like it! And I never argue with my cat and my cat doesn’t have in-laws who judge me! Also my cat has never cheated on me with another human! I could go on…

There are some issues with being single – not necessarily just for Asexual folks. When I get old who is going to look after me? If I lose my ability to work who is going to pay my mortgage? When I was in hospital for three weeks recently, getting someone to look after my kitty was challenging to say the least!

I like being Asexual most of the time. For one thing it makes some parts of my life less complicated! Asexuality is not well understood. People see it as being a response to trauma – and indeed some people who have experienced trauma do avoid sexual contact, but Asexuality is a valid sexuality and not necessarily ‘caused’ by anything. Even though I didn’t have the words for it. I knew I was Asexual when I was a child and young teen – before I had any sexual contact.

The ‘A’ in the LGBTQIA+ acronym stands for Asexual. It is one of the most misunderstood letters in the acronym, along with the ‘I’ for Intersex – and that is a topic for another blog post! People think the ‘A’ stands for Allies. It really doesn’t and I think almost every Asexual person you talk to finds that irritating and kinda disrespectful and invalidating too!

Often Asexual gets shortened to ‘Ace’ which I love. I feel pretty ace about my sexuality! I have a bunch of things to be proud of and one of them is my Ace identity. I think a lot of education is needed in the area of Asexual pride, including in the broader Queer community.

There are different sorts of Asexuality. Some people identify as ‘greysexual’ which means they are OK with some sexual contact. This may vary depending on their partner and their mood at the time. There are Asexual people who like romantic relationships but not sex and there are people like me who get described as ‘Aro Ace’ or Aromantic Asexual which means they don’t want sex or a partner. And as with all sexualities, people can change over time. I avoid setting identities in stone as they can change and that is OK. For some reason the idea of a ‘phase’ in the gender or sexuality area is viewed as a bad thing and a reason for bigots to invalidate the experience of Queer folks. In reality these things do change for some people and that is totally OK.

I am proud to be Aro Ace. It took me a long time to get to a point of this as I thought my Asexuality was a source of embarrassment or a reason for shame. I felt there was something ‘wrong’ with me. It isn’t. There isn’t. It is part of me and I am as proud of it as I am my other identities.

This is the Asexual flag – I have a big one in my hallways and a progress pride flag in my bedroom – a Yenn can never have too many pride flags!!

Prison, disability and identity

The other night I had a memorable and beautiful dream. This is unusual because most of my dreams are unpleasant and involve me getting fired from jobs or dying. The nice dream involved me flying over the Australian desert landscape. It went on for ages, and it was stunning. Flying dreams are pretty rare for me. In fact, I remember the one I had before this one. I remember it distinctly and I remember what date it was. It was 2 September 1994, and I was in jail for what would be the first of many visits to Her majesty’s hotel. I was in the police watchhouse, with two other prisoners. It was my first night as a prisoner. The cells were cold and uncomfortable. I finally went to sleep and had this beautiful flying dream. I was flying over the mountains where I grew up. It was transcendent. And then I was woken up by a police officer yelling at us to wake up. This was a pretty memorable experience, mostly for negative reasons.

I suspect that a lot of people doubt that I was a prisoner. I am nice and respectful and do impressive stuff and so forth. However, I can assure you that I was a prisoner between 1994-2000. I consider myself a highly ethical person with a highly unethical past. People often tell me that my ‘interesting’ history is an important part of me and I should embrace it. However, from my perspective, this is complicated. Yes, my past is obviously part of what makes me who I am, but it is not something to be proud of. I was not a political prisoner, I was a criminal. While my incarceration was definitely a justice response to a mental health issue, I did have agency and choice and I made some very unhelpful decisions, some of which involved victimising people. I was aggressive and self-destructive. I made very poor choices and had no sense of responsibility. So yes, complicated.

My experience does highlight a significant issue though – that of people with disability and psychosocial disability ending up in jail because there is no other place for them. When I used to go to court my lawyer, the wonderful Vince, would show the magistrate photos of my art. The magistrate would look at these and invariably say, “I don’t want to send this person to jail but there is no alternative”. Sadly, I think this is true now for others in similar circumstances to me, thirty years later.

Prisoners tend to be invisible. Out of sight out of mind. We also live in a society which likes to feel that criminals are being adequately punished. Actually, the purpose of prison is meant to be rehabilitation not publishment, meaning people should leave ‘reformed’. As a former prisoner I can attest that this is rarely the case and prison breeds prison.

I have never been judgemental about crime. I obviously don’t condone it, but I do understand that people do things for a reason. Autistic people can end up in jail for a number of reasons. They can be coerced into criminal behaviour by others; they can be traumatised by bullying and abuse and fight back. In my case I first got in trouble because I had a criminal partner and I became afraid of him when I realised what he was up to, felt I couldn’t leave him and so committed crimes with him. After that I became institutionalised and struggled to live in the outside world.

I have actually spent 10 years of my life in institutions – prisons, psychiatric hospitals and mental health residential services. It is a temptation to be in an institution. There is no responsibility, you don’t have to worry about buying food or paying a mortgage or rent. Even now, thrity years after being in jail, I think that being in residential mental health care is tempting, especially when I am unwell. These days I am highly responsible and I don’t think there is much risk of me going back to institutions but that pull can be strong, especially if life is very difficult and you feel out of control.

One thing about my journey which is surprising is how little resistance I have experienced in accessing things like employment and study. I have never been refused a job due to my criminal history – although for some of my jobs I have had to answer quite a few questions about my history! My police check always comes back clear due to the age of my convictions and I have held a security clearance in the past. I have a social media friend in the USA who is an African American ex-prisoner. He said how surprised he was that I could get a professional job because in America I would not be able to. I am not sure if this is a cultural difference or a racism issue or a combination, but it does make me reflect on how fortunate I am to live in Australia. Although I think a lot of ex-prisoners in Australia can have issues finding work too. I have the benefit of not looking like a stereotype of what people think a criminal ‘looks like’ which I think makes a difference in this space – and this makes me sad to be human! That first impression assumption can be an issue and can compound exclusion.

I was actually diagnosed as autistic shortly after I went to jail in 1994. The clinician who diagnosed me came in to visit me three times to do the assessment. I have spoken with her since, and she said it was a bit daunting going to jail, even as a visitor! She also said she realised that she needed to be honest and up front with me to gain my trust. I treasure that statement because I don’t remember what I was like then and it gives me a window into my past. Obviously, I was me, but I was a different version of me. I do reflect on that time as formative. Very unpleasant but formative.

And I hope I don’t have to wait another 32 years for another flying dream!

Not a choice to be trans but definitely a choice to be a bigot

Content warning: brief reference to suicide

Today I blocked a bigot who said hateful things about my hair of all things! My hair, as you can see, is rainbow – both for aesthetics and also to reflect my very strong sense of Queer pride. I am entirely unashamed to be who I am, in terms of many things – my autism, ADHD, schizophrenia and especially my Queer identities as a non-binary / trans person and an Asexual and Aromantic person. I came out as gay when I was 16 so I have identified as Queer for the majority of my life. My gender identity has never been cis female, but I didn’t have words for my gender until I was in my forties when I came out as nonbinary – a life-changing, affirming and empowering experience. Sexuality and gender are a very important part of who I am. I think for most people their gender and sexuality are probably a big part of their sense of who they are, both for Queer folks and cis gender and heterosexual folks too.

I want to talk a bit about gender diversity from my own perspective. I am a minor public figure who is trans / non-binary. This means I get a nice platform to talk about it but unfortunately it does attract bigots and haters. I gave a TEDx talk about autism, gender diversity and allies in 2023. (Here is the link if you want to have a look – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSC1P49jOec&t=156s) When I gave the talk, I said that I knew that as soon as the talk was posted on YouTube it would be attacked by bigots. Sadly, I was 100 per cent right – although I should note that the vast majority of comments on my talk were positive.

Bigotry around gender is everywhere and it is horrible. People – including young people and kids – have attempted suicide in response to transphobic hatred. There is a repeated statistic I came across when researching my TEDx talk that 40 per cent of transgender people have attempted suicide. Even I struggle with my wellbeing when people deal hatred to me, and I am a big scary, middle-aged bolshy activist who has been doing this for a very long time! The hate eats into my sense of self and makes me feel bad. However because I am a big bolshy activist, it mostly just makes me angry and feel the need to write blog posts challenging hatred, such as this one!

Things are definitely changing but I always worry that we need to not get complacent and assume everything is improving and going in the right direction and as a result do nothing. Inclusion doesn’t seem to work like that. Activism requires an ongoing effort or things will almost certainly get worse. Attitudes vary across the world too. I discovered the other day that I would now not be allowed to visit America – or even transit through an American airport – because my passport lists my gender as X. This is horrific when the bigots are also the government! Yup. Activism, allyship and advocacy are an ongoing and necessary process. I think this is true of other movements as well, such as Civil Rights and Black Lives Matter.

A few important points around gender diversity from my experience:

Don’t assume a person’s gender by looking at them. You really can’t tell – and you don’t need to know anyway!
Aim to be an active ally (maybe check my TEDx for more detail on this!)
Every trans person is ‘trans enough’. There is no exam for this! If you identify as trans then you are trans
Gender and sexuality are not the same thing
If you want a very quick and easy way to demonstrate your allyship and support, pop your pronouns in your email signature
Clothes, shoes, hair makeup and jewellery do not have a gender
The concept of a ‘phase’ in this space is unhelpful and often disrespectful
If someone comes out to you be positive and supportive. Be aware coming out is a big deal and often takes a lot of effort, courage and preparation to do. Also, if the person coming out is someone close to you – such as your child, sibling, parent or partner – the coming out conversation is likely to have taken a lot of courage and be very stressful for the person coming out
Wear ally things like lanyards, pins, clothing etc. A survey by Minus18 found that just a perosn wearing rainbow was likely to make a Queer young person feel safe. I would recommend the Minus 18 website (www.minus18.org.au) for merchandise and information or Wear it Purple Day site (https://www.wearitpurple.org/wear-it-purple-day-2026)
Educate yourself about trans experience. There is some great content to view or read – including a fair amount by me!
If you are a parent who has an issue with their child being trans, please put your issues on hold. Your child needs you as a supporter and an ally that they know they can come to. I always say that if you reject your child based on their gender identity the best outcome is that you lose their respect and the worst outcome is that you lose your child. Park the bigotry and be there for your child. They probably look to you for guidance so your support is essential
Autistic folks are statistically significantly more likely to be trans and gender divergent than their neurotypical peers
You don’t need to have medical interventions to be trans
You do not need to have gender dysphoria to be trans. Many trans people – including me – have gender incongruence which is a different thing. There is also a lovely thing called gender euphoria which often happens when a trans person affirms their gender and feels great about it
Someone else’s gender is not really your business.
Don’t ever ask someone about their physical sex characteristics. I always say if you wouldn’t ask your mum or your aunty a question about this sort of thing then don’t ask me! Could you imagine someone asking you about your penis or your vagina? I imagine you would feel it highly rude and invasive – and that it was none of their business. And please NEVER use the phrase ‘I don’t care what’s between your legs’ to a trans person – or anyone else.
Please don’t intentionally misgender folks – and if you do so accidentally, don’t make it a big issue. Just apologise and move on and try not to do it again
Never call a trans person by their ‘dead’ name. It is hurtful and disrespectful. Once again, if you do so in error, just apologise and don’t do it again. Also, please don’t ask a trans person what their old name was or what their ‘real’ name is
Gender diversity is not a ‘lifestyle choice.’ Sexuality is also not a ‘lifestyle choice.’
Being trans is not a decision
Oh, and we are not recruiting, trans women are not trying to somehow undermine women’s rights or ruin women’s sports (I can never figure out how that one is meant to work!) and we don’t have an agenda to convert people. These accusations sound silly but they are often used to attack us and cause a lot of damage in our community. Speaking as a trans person, my only agenda is to cuddle my cat, live a good and fulfilled life and to be in a world where people respect me for who I am and don’t subject me to hatred, bullying and bigotry.

Trans folks who have a big profile being publicly out and proud helps other people. I myself will not stop talking about these things no matter how much negativity I receive for doing so. If nobody stands up to be counted in this area and other areas around inclusion and intersectionality, then the bigots get free reign to peddle hate and the immense damage that can cause. And this isn’t just a job for people with a public profile. Everyone can be an ally. Every instance of advocacy and allyship works to turn the tide of hatred and promote inclusion and respect and just a world where people like me can feel safe and not be afraid of hatred and bigotry.

Oh, and to the bigot that I blocked today: My hair is ficking awesome!!

Yennski with pride -themed hair

Yennski versus fame

When I was a child, I went through period of wanting to be ‘rich and famous’. At the time I didn’t know what it entailed but it seemed like a good thing to be! These days I am not really rich or famous…. Well depending on your perspective! And perspective is important when talking about such things.

I have done a fair number of media appearances over the years. I used to want more of this, with the view it might make me more renowned. But then I had a few thoughts which made this seem a little odd. Firstly, if I am on the news, is anyone going to remember that in a years’ time? Is someone who gets featured on the news or in an online article a celebrity? Probably not! There are loads of opportunities for becoming well-known but most of them are pretty fleeting.

Also is life somehow better when you have fame? I am suggesting it probably isn’t. If anything, it might be worse. You are under a lot of public scrutiny, if you do anything embarrassing everyone knows about it and you have very little privacy. I actually wouldn’t want that as a lifestyle.

The other thing is simply time. For example, in the 1940s-1960s there was a very well-known singer called Frank Sinatra. My grandparents’ generation would have known his work, my parents’ generation would have known his work, my generation would probably have heard of him and maybe know he was a well-known singer back in the day, and the generations younger than me probably have never heard of him! Fame – even genuine fame – doesn’t make you immortal – it just postpones the point where people no longer know who you are! Can you think of three people who were alive and well-known in the year 1026? I know I can’t. No amount of fame gives immortality. There is that poem by English Romantic poet Percy Shelley, Ozymandias:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

— Percy Shelley, “Ozymandias”, 1819 edition

A lot of people who seek fame are not really folks I would like to spend my time with, and the intentional pursuit of fame is, I would imagine, pretty exhausting! I used to want wealth and fame, and I sort of got them, depending on your perspective! I actually have just about the right amount of recognition as I would want. People know and love my books, appreciate my talks and it is remarkably easy for me to find a job if I want one! I long ago gave up seeking recognition as I realised that in the scheme of things it is pretty far down the list of things that I prioritise or want for myself. I have more recognition than most people but not a huge amount. Likewise, I have enough money but not as much as some. I am grateful for what I have in both areas and it does seem I have a sort of goldilocks approach to recognition. I know that fame or wealth or probably not the most helpful of things to strive for. If they happen, well and good but if not it isn’t a disaster.

My goal in terms of the legacy I leave when I am gone is not how many people knew who I was, how wealthy or famous I was or how many likes my Facebook page got. My aim is to touch each person I meet with kindness and respect. I want the world to be just a little bit better when I leave than it was when I arrived. I don’t seek immortality – mostly because it doesn’t really exist. I just hope that when I die people will reflect that I was a positive presence in the world. And you really can’t ask for much more than that.