June 11, 2005

PMT - The Real Weapon of Mass Destruction

Ever wanted to kill your husband? Well, you're not the only one...

Off with his legs

A friend remarked to me today that if her lover had referred to her as flippantly as‘ a pair of old slippers that he can’t get rid of’, she too would have happily whacked him over the head with a cricket bat and stabbed him in the chest. Had she been in the throes of p.m.t she might have sawn his legs off as well. There wouldn’t have been any more ‘slipper’ jokes; that’s for sure. He wouldn’t be needing them again anyway.

Such were the shock and horror quotations sprawled across Tuesdays papers about Jane Andrews pending trial for the murder of her lover whom she discovered was having a secret affair by e-mail. Just what makes a woman go over the edge and lose all control, whose rage intensifies to such a peak that a murder is committed? What drives women to do such atrocities? What’s going on?

The 28th Day

My friend is by all intent and purposes a perfectly well adjusted normal human being and was only joking, but should we really be laughing so hard? She admits that at certain times of the month, she can understand how any woman can fan the fire of resentment with fantasies of causing grievous bodily harm to their loved ones. Especially when they are hurting and have valid and legitimate reasons for being angry.

Being angry is ok. But does it give us a free pass to mutilate and gun down the opposite sex as seen reported more and more often in the tabloids I ask her? One case in question comes to mind. A woman in the states who murdered her lover in the thick of pre menstrual tension or pre menstrual syndrome, as it is more commonly known. She was acquitted her crime if my memory serves me right. Does that mean a free for all? Can we all barrel down to the local Toys’r’us and buy a truckload of cricket bats and wreak revenge at random? A short sharp trip to the loony bin and hey it’s all over baby. They say if you’re looking for revenge you better dig two graves and I believe in that.

Healthy? Ha!

Of course, you might say, I don’t know my arse from my elbow and when I was told this article was about relationships, well frankly. I burst out laughing. You’re right. I’ve no idea what constitutes a healthy loving intimate relationship but then again does anyone? However as far as I know, it’s generally unacceptable to beat the living daylights out of each other and then blame the chemist for having no starflower oil or Vitamin B6 in stock. It just so happens that I am in the middle of writing a short story on the subject of p.m.t. for a new book and wonder is it possible, that women can be pushed over the edge at the wrong time? Well next time your girlfriend is in p.m.t. try asking her would she like a cup of tea? What will happen? Let me guess.

If you are lucky, she will give you a look that would wither a rose. More than likely she will slap you across the head and tell you to go and stick it where the sun don’t shine. Now add the scenario of her finding out you are making love to a computer on the sly and insult her with the above quote from Tommy Cressman and ponder with justifiable amazement how you are still alive because he’s pushing up daisies right now. I hope you are getting the gist of it. I’m not saying Jane Andrews was suffering from p.m.t. I’m just posing the question. What if she was? Guys, if you value your time on this planet, don’t push the button. You may never live to see what a cricket bat is actually intended for and you may look down one day and find yourself minus the bottom half of your legs. According to my friend, of course.

The Celtic Bogcat

Violence is an undeniable part of today’s news coverage and is more out there due to media accessibility but is it really fair to assume it is only the result of the crumbling values so prevalent in society today? I ask my friend, has not the Celtic Tiger brought with it the nasty negative dark side as well as the positive? What of the millennium diseases like greed, road rage, bad manners, pursuit of power and money as the be all and end all? Have we not got lost in the chase for happiness out there instead of in here? Yes and no my friend replies.

With all this affluence and wealth one would imagine we are all happy in our nappy and destined to spin in euphoric glee for ever after. Yes well Catherine Nevin isn’t very happy at the moment and Myra Hindley certainly wasn’t suffering from some slight backache and a bloated stomach. There are bad women as well as men. Looking back through history, there have been many cases in the category described above. Those kinds of stories were always occurring, we just didn’t hear about it. The Queens of old, spring to mind as a point in case. They had a penchant for chopping off heads as nonchalantly as we dice onions for spaghetti Bolognese. No one batted an eyelid. How come? Because they were dead basically, my friend reminds me. Oh yeah. Right.

Spanner

Let me throw a spanner in the works. Just for argument sake could it have anything to do with the constant barrage of violent sex that now seems to be more in demand than ever in the multi billion-pornography business? You know the kind of thing I’m talking about. The burning of a woman’s nipples while she cries seems to be a great turn on I hear. The abuse of children, who are now expected to behave like responsible adults, still goes unacknowledged by those who claimed to be our spiritual guides.

These lost souls can hardly cure themselves. Until someone tells them it wasn’t their fault how are they supposed to heal? They are destined to become abusers too but enough of that, it’s too awful to dwell on. Snuff movies with preplanned murders are hot stuff and readily available in this country but if you don’t tell anyone I promise I’ll do a great impression of an ostrich arse up, too.

It seems perfectly acceptable for a man to tear his own skin off in a video that he knows children like my eight year old daughter will watch and other famous women repeatedly tell me if I don’t have a size 99F breast well then it’s my own fault if I’m a lonely old tart.

Rape is on the increase on the streets but also readily available to rent on video. Coincidence or deeply rooted connection? You tell me. Of course I’m not sure if any of that has anything to do with why women murder their lovers. I really don’t know anymore than you. I’m only taking a wild stab in the dark. Better to take a wild stab at something not human and better to direct it where it really belongs than end up in the dock wondering how did I get here?

Rape Crisis Centre Ireland

Buy Skin Deep by Catherine Barry

Posted by damien at 01:21 PM | Comments (0)

June 01, 2005

Eminem and the Bockady People

I love Eminem. There. It’s out. I will say it again. I just love Eminem. I am the mother of two small children, regard myself as a pretty good role model, have raised my kids very well, and they have turned out wonderful. But I still love Eminem…

Closets

He can continue to ‘clean out his closets’ for as long as he wants as far as I am concerned. I think it’s just wonderful. I will buy all his c.d.’s because they just keep getting better and better and no, I don’t openly play him in front of the kids, but it makes no difference. All they have to do is go downstairs and turn MTV on. There’s a lot worse than ‘Eminem’ on MTV that I object to.

The more he vents his anger and expresses his rage, the more he shames his abusers. The more he shames his abusers, the more society reels. Why? Because in this lousy world some people will never acknowledge, let alone apologize for their own behaviour. The victims of this ‘dismissiveness’ have only one choice left. That’s to holler even louder, become more explicit and graphic. He is trying to be heard and he will be. I hear Eminem’s pain. I cry when I hear ‘Cleaning out my closets’ and those who are dumb enough to try and shut him up are only serving to motivate him to write another song, and another…

The Bockady People

Victims of sexual abuse know all about this. I call them the ‘Bockady people’. I use the term ‘sexual abuse’ because of the recent exposure of the real extent of the abuse and the subsequent ‘dismissal’ when help was called for. However, the word ‘abuse’ may cover a multitude. It is not just sexual abuse that has our prisons full of drug addicts (not criminals as we would like to call them).

It is violence, overt and covert, which can occur in the very act of being drunk and terrifying (without hitting anyone) to not being ‘emotionally available’. This is all a spin off of today’s new addictions, food, sex, alcohol, drugs, relationships, money, power and work. You can actually include everything that can be repeated more than once.

The result of all this mayhem is too commonly presented in courts, counsellor’s offices, prison cells and juvenile homes as the now familiar ‘acting out teenager’. The child of course, is only a symptom of the family disease. Parents are as much a part of the problem as the solution and ‘families’ in general need to be treated as a whole. Not just the obvious child who is causing trouble. This is only the tip of the iceberg and until we come to grips with the ‘larger picture’ (that Daddy is beating Mammy and Uncle Jim is abusing his niece) then we are failing our children completely.

Responsible

It is no use wagging fingers at kids who stab, maim or even kill for a mobile phone or the dart fare home. If they are under sixteen then presumably someone, somewhere is responsible for them and these people should be targeted and treated as well as their troublesome off spring. If not, the suicide statistics, the escalating violence on our streets, the seemingly complete absence of any moral decorum will appear as if we are living in New York, not the Dublin we once knew.

People who have been on the receiving end of abuse, no matter how subtle, will take their unresolved conflicts in to life. They have no other place to take them, and are entitled to be heard. Not only do they have to endure a lifetime of depression, broken relationships (if they manage to have any), but also then they have to deal with the ultimate knife in the back. The denial of the abuser. What does this do to someone’s mind? Well, we can see for ourselves can’t we?

What's up Doc?

Next time you’re in your doctor’s surgery, you can surmise that half of the patients in the waiting room are being treated for depression. The guy who just mowed down people in the streets, well what’s his story? Bet its abuse of some kind. Absenteeism from work (due to depression, addiction or inability to just cope) is costing company’s billions. Our private hospitals are full of people who don’t know what’s wrong with them. Our current road accidents are the highest figures ever; they always seem to happen at 3a.m. These people are hardly out to get a pint of milk? A lot them are as ‘drunk’ on medication as alcohol.

Our prisons are full of ‘untreated addicts’ who have been forced in to some kind of crime to support it. They are thrown on the street again and on the vicious circle goes. Hurt people, hurt people.

Rewards

They are on your child’s computer waiting to do to the innocent what was done to them, because they don’t know any better. When our Church (supposedly our protectors and guides) cosset, protect and sweep over such violation of human rights, society will reap the rewards.

Although it is not a problem exclusive to the Catholic Church. It is just as likely to be your next-door neighbour who is abusing as the local parish priest.

The rewards are all there for us to see in the headlines of yesterday’s paper, today’s paper, and yes, tomorrow’s paper. It was Nelson Mandela who said in his inaugural speech ‘Don’t play it small, playing small helps nobody’. He didn’t mean people can go about blindingly abusing others because they were abused. On the contrary, if the ‘Eminem’s’ of this world all used their energy creatively and poured it in to constructive expression, there would be a lot more healing. Me? I am just about to step out and buy his new album. Keep talking ‘Eminem’. I hear you…

Information on drugs from the National Drugs Strategy Group

Posted by damien at 01:22 PM | Comments (0)

April 18, 2005

I, Mother of Bastards

A topical debate about 'lone parents' sparked off by Professor Ed Walsh seems to have invited a flurry of poison-pen articles. These 'self appointed' armchair psychiatrists seem to have it all wrapped up...

A topical debate about 'lone parents' sparked off by Professor Ed Walsh seems to have invited a flurry of poison-pen articles. These 'self appointed' armchair psychiatrists seem to have it all wrapped up, and want to impart their words of wisdom and teach me a thing or two about how I should live my life. I don't like naming names, but I will mention one and it is only because I take considerable offence to having my beautiful children referred to as 'bastards'.
They are not.

Kevin Myers, ('If I had a brain, I'd be dangerous') author of this insult and others, ought to think first before they wilfully hurt Irish children who are educated enough to read this appalling and inaccurate 'lone parent bashing'.
These people seem to have us Lone Parents sussed…. Some suggest that we planned it all.
That a social welfare payment of €180 a week (for the mere task of raising a human being to adulthood) has acted as an 'incentive' into our communal descent into the 'moral free loader' category which these people purport we belong to.
So look closely.
No closer...
Can you see it now?
My hand is up.
I’m waving it frantically before your very eyes!
It's all true...
I give in.
Yes...
I do belong to that obscenely and grotesquely opulent brat pack.
You know…
The LPSWLI.
(Lone Parent Social Welfare Lifters Inc.)

There’s no point in playing ostrich arse up. I am as guilty as a certain politician, who robbed us of much more, (but we won't go there).


Plans

It was a cold, calculated premeditated plot to unburden society of their hard earned cash, a whopping €180 euros a week...

We all planned it.

Right down to the psychotic partners who beat us senseless, or the addicts who left us starving or the unfaithful ones who ran off with someone else... or simply abandoned us... and their children.
Those visits to St. Vincent De Paul? They really had you fooled, eh? They were deliberate diversions: we made them up. We didn't really need to go there to get our kids clothes. The sad itemized shopping lists that we took to the cheapest supermarket every week? Yeah… that was all for show too. Opening the oven door in the kitchen to get some heat? Yep, you guessed it, that too was all to foster sympathy for the 'poor lone parent' image.

Why, I even bought a shambles of a property in a not too popular part of Dublin North city, thinking it would enhance the overall ‘poverty’ vibe, make it all look a bit more authentic you know?

You see, I was walking down the street one day and saw a girl coming out of the dole office pushing a battered buggy, and balancing three bags of shopping on it while her baby screamed blue murder because he wanted an ice-pop and she couldn't afford it. It was there and then I felt my first ‘rush' of 'social toxism'.

It dawned on me, like a thunder bolt out of the blue.
That’s what I want!
That's what I want out of life!
I ran home overwhelmed with excitement and fired with enthusiasm about my newly found vocation…being a pimple on the arsehole of humanity.
Oh the joy!


Perks

I would experience such thrills! Like a distinct lack of social life and good job prospects, I would simply reel with the ecstasy of sacrificing all and sundry for my wee ones (including a sex life/freedom/clothes/holidays/) and there was the unbridled euphoria of being a 24 hour nurse to look forward to, not to mention the emotionally/mentally and physically rewarding drudgery of being the sole responsibility to my children.
Being sick and having no-one to mind you, that really appealed to me also but if I was pushed, I would have to say; it was the extreme poverty that attracted me the most.
I could hardly contain my happiness...

I would drop babies by the nanosecond, at least six.
I would immediately adapt a completely irresponsible moral code.
I would team up with the ‘Condoms? Never heard of them… any chance of a ride anyway?’ brigade.
I wouldn’t do ‘employment’. What is it anyway?

But how exactly was I going to crack this plot?

Why it all came to me in a flash of intense ESP of course. Obviously, I hadn’t been consciously aware of my dormant psychic gift at the time, but I guess that’s what MUST have happened. How else could I have predicted our future economy? The rise and fall in house prices, social welfare rates, medical cards, rent allowances, tax dodges, training schemes, the desperate depression of the drastic 80’s… and roughly 22 financial budgets?

You tell me.


Incentive

I have worked full time all my life as a 'lone parent' and handed it all out again to a babysitter. What's that babysitter thingy? It's a thing you have to get to mind your kids, that takes all the money you have gone out to earn so people won't label you 'a mooch'. It's also an issue that this government refuses to address despite the fact that all other countries have incorporated 'childcare' into their agendas to give incentive to women to go out and work.

Where's that 'incentive' please?

Damn... Must have missed it... probably while I was out breaking my back working a 12 hour day... and as for the six kids bit, all the lone parents I know have one child. I hadn't time for sex after the first two... Another point worth remembering is that most Lone Parents do not own a home and the chances of it happening are slim, why? Because the majority of us are separated/divorced and will never have the €150,000 (or whatever) to purchase our half of the house from our significant other, and em no... we don't have it stashed away in social welfare cheques somewhere in the Cayman Islands...

It has also been suggested recently that offspring of Lone Parent will become drug dealing murdering rapist pimps, due to a distinct missing presence of a father figure. This has me VERY concerned.

My son is a very gifted talented guitar player, has a green belt in Tae-kwon Do, got four honours in his Junior Cert, doesn't do drugs, hates cigarettes, has a moderate drink now and then and is very anti-war, unlike some children of two parent families who think kicking someone to death is acceptable. My daughter has two grades in violin, has a talent for art and music, is tops in her class at reading and writing and displays impeccable manners. She's fair, trusting and compassionate.


Perfect

Double damn... I obviously missed something there too. They're perfect. And it's all my fault. I am so ashamed... and I apologize profusely for letting you all down.

Well it has to be someone’s fault right?

Well, we now know, it's not a lack of education that manufactures 'lone parents’; children are now taught sex education (which includes relationships) in school.

It's not a lack of availability of contraception. We can nip around to the garage or pub and get that now. And it's not that we are hormone smitten teenagers who can't keep their pants on.

Most of us on lone parents are grown adults.

So what is it?

I say it is life...

It's life Jim... but not as we know it.

Because we can't seem to be human anymore and make mistakes.

___________________

Catherine Barry is a single working mother, living on the Northside of Dublin. When not raising her great satanic brood of Bastard Spawn, she works for The One parent exchange network* and writes novels. Her third novel 'Skin deep' will be published in March 2005.

Buy Skin Deep by Catherine Barry

* = the opinions expressed in this piece are not reflective of any policy of the One Parent Exchange Network.

Posted by damien at 08:38 AM | Comments (0)

February 17, 2005

What about my lump?

Some weeks ago, I detected a lump under my right arm. I paid no attention to it, assuming it would go away. It didn’t...

Some weeks ago, I detected a lump under my right arm. I paid no attention to it, assuming it would go away. It didn’t, so I went to see my doctor who prescribed penicillin. When this failed to vanquish the foreign object, he suggested I have a biopsy done. Having always had private health care insurance, he assured me I would be seen to immediately. He promptly wrote me a referral letter and told me to telephone a certain private hospital and make an appointment a.s.a.p.

I started phoning the said private hospital on a Monday but was greeted by a very non-descript answering machine. I repeatedly left messages that I needed to make an urgent appointment with the surgeon. After several failed attempts and no response, I thought perhaps the phone number to be temporarily out of order, so I contacted the general number of the said hospital.

Harp of hell

Having endured 8 and half minutes of detestable harp playing, an anonymous woman eventually answered. I explained my situation to her and asked if the number was out of order.

‘’No, actually the number is not out of order. I’m afraid the secretary is out sick at the moment,’ she explained.
‘I see,’ I said ‘so can you tell me who is the stand in and how I can make an appointment with someone else?’
‘Oh, I’m afraid there isn’t anyone else,’ she went on.
‘Excuse me?’
‘I’m afraid you will have to wait till the secretary of Mr. X returns from work,’
‘I see,’ I say a little taken aback ‘this is the private hospital I am on to?’
‘Yes,’ she confirms.
‘I see. So let me get this straight. I have a lump under my arm and could be dying of terminal cancer or some other horrific disease, and I have to wait till the secretary returns before I can see a surgeon?’
‘That’s correct I’m afraid,’ the anonymous voice sounded a little embarrassed.
‘I’m not sure you understood me,’ I say quietly ‘but I may have a life threatening illness and I would like to see a surgeon as soon as possible. There must be something you can do for me? Can you at least find out for me when this secretary will be back?’
‘I can try,’ she says warily ‘please hold,’

I am wearily entertained by Michael Flatfoot and Company, his intermittent yelping guaranteeing the onset of a migraine of gargantuan proportions.

However, I am determined not to hang up, it took me twenty minutes to connect with any sign of the living in the first place. I ponder have I been mistakenly transferred to the mortuary? Just as I am putting the finishing touches to my epitaph and last will and testament, Mrs. Anonymous receptionist returns.

We wish we could help you

‘As far as I know Mr. X’s secretary has a bad cold. She may be back by Thursday, I can’t say for sure,’ she tells me.
My heart bleeds for the secretary. I make a mental note to send her flowers.
‘And what am I supposed to do in the meantime. What about my lump?’ I demand sulkily.
‘I wish I could help you. I’m afraid you have to wait till she comes back,’ she says solemnly.
‘What? Until Thursday? I’m on my mobile phone. It will cost me an arm and a leg to hold on that long, what if I die?’ I point out ‘it’s hardly a life threatening illness she has, its just a little sniffle for Gods sake!’
‘Can you please hold. I have to take another call,’ she says abruptly and I am left holding again. I am furious. I had desperately wanted to tell the anonymous voice that she too could be soon facing a life threatening illness if I ever managed to get my hands on her.

Another ten minutes of Michael Flatfoot and I am beginning to show alarming signs of ‘Riverdanceitus’. My head is jerking spasmodically and my feet are beginning to tap frantically without my permission. I decide I might as well have my daily nap while I am waiting. At 4p.m. I am brought back to consciousness by the sound of another woman’s voice.

‘Hello?’ she is yelling down the phone ‘is that the private hospital?’
Great. A crossed line. A strike up a conversation with Mary whose husband is waiting three years for a heart transplant. She spends most of her days trying to get through to the hospital and has moved the kitchen and bedroom out to the hall where the phone is. She claims it’s more comfortable. We come up with an elaborate plan. If either of us sees an ambulance going less than 50 miles per hour, we’ll thrown ourselves mercilessly under it. When the driver gets out, we’ll ambush him and knock him out with some ether. She promises me, if she gets lucky first she’ll mill around to Kilbarrack and drive me straight to casualty. By the time I’m finished talking to her I know the ins and outs of her thirty-year marriage and that grapes are a great remedy for piles. I in exchange, have promised to send photos of the kids by scanner on the e-mail.

A click, and anonymous is back.

Ambulances

‘Hello? You’re holding for?’
I reiterate my story.
She vaguely remembers me.
‘I’m sorry but if there was anything I could do for you I would,’ she says whilst yawning heavily in to my swollen ear.
‘Would it help if I hacked off my legs and called an ambulance, surely that’s an emergency?’ I suggest in desperation.
‘I doubt it,’ she sighs ‘we already have an epidemic of hacked off leg patients and the ambulance men have copped on,’ she informs me matter of factly.
‘What if I drove in myself, in my own car?’ I ask.
‘How could you, with no legs? Unless you have a friend who is willing to drive you?’ she says.
Massive intelligence. I’ll give her that.
The line suddenly goes dead.

It doesn’t matter, I say to myself. I conclude I have already contracted cancer from the mobile phones radiation waves. After all, it’s been stuck to my ears for three hours.

By the way, please note that all the above characters are completely and utterly fictitious. As is the notion of private medical health care insurance in Ireland.

Click here for more information on cancer from The Irish Cancer Society

Posted by damien at 01:24 PM | Comments (0)