Elisabeth Fritzl's Story.

I've just finished reading about Josef Fritzl, the Austrian Nazi supporting sadist who kidnapped his 18 year old daughter, raped her over 3000 times and locked her in a cellar under his home for 24 years, in which time she bore 7 of his incest children.

While the book was written in a sensationalised manner and the facts were apparent before I'd even read the book, they didn't seem to sink in until I gave myself more than a minute to think about it. For 24 long, tedious, repetitive, inhumane, torturous years this woman was bound to a cellar without even a window, fresh air or sunlight. It's easy for us to skim over the facts and not feel the weight of the life she's been forced to waste, while the rest of the world and her family unknowingly carried on with their lives literally above her head.

Elisabeth bore 7 children, and one of them died within 3 days of his birth. Her father burned the child in the furnace and buried his remains. Perhaps while no second of her life in the cellar would have been in any way enjoyable, I think the first 5 years would have been the worst, before she had the company of a child.

The torture, rape, inhumane treatment of his cellar family, malnutrition, physical and verbal abuse and barbaric act of absolute sadistic control stretches to levels as evil as the Holocaust and more primitive eras. To think this woman, and her 3 remaining children in the cellar (the other 3 were released earlier and Fritzl forged a lie to his life his daughter had left them there to be raised by his wife) was only released from her cellar 3 years ago is appalling.

Other bizarre tales of abduction, abuse and sexual deviation have emerged from Austria. It's a chilling thought to consider we may be faced with another news headline that will grip the world and penetrate our perception of evil to a even greater level we'd never even anticipated.

I read that every human is capable of murder, torture and any other evil acts, but it's social convention, rational and logical thinking that prevent the majority of people from ever committing such terrible crimes.

When it comes to blaming previous mistreatment and abuse on you as a justifying reason for your retaliation, I can only agree to a certain extent. We may not differentiate between right and wrong having been amongst an environment of abuse that you have become accustomed to, but as an adult who is fully aware of the consequences of their actions every time you think or commit a crime, you are leaving your human conscience behind.

Fritzl explains he suffered from abuse from his stern mother who beat him and was abandoned by his alcoholic father, but his Oedipus fixations that stemmed from his childhood had no place to be manifested into his adult rituals, fantasies and control over his cultivated and secretive cellar family.

Perhaps this is an example of sadistic obsession at its finest; perhaps it's simply a story too horrifying to ever forget, but I hope that all victims of abuse in any way, and in any severity have been released from their cellars of control and repulsion, and are able to close the door on that past life they never should have lived.

Finding My Way Back

Although we all have events in our lives that harbour fear, leave distaste and implant worry I've always been a firm believer that we can't let ourselves be defeated by anyone, or any bad experience we may have had to endure.

I feel like the past few months are on their way to being left behind in a chapter of my life I'll acknowledge but prefer not to re-read again. My friends have been amazing during this time. No judgment has been passed, and only love and support has been provided to ensure I'm comfortable and able to move forward with my life.

I've gone out (drinking) twice this week, and it was good to be safe and not feel threatened by any situation I was in. I've laughed, had lots of fun and have felt like I'm getting back to being my old self again.

I suppose one of my biggest fears is dealing with other people's perceptions of what I should or shouldn't be doing after this experience; though I can't live my life incessantly using a bad experience, particularly as it wasn't my fault, as a reference point for all future plans in my life. I am allowed to be carefree and have fun with my friends without the constant nagging that what I'm doing is wrong.

I've gotten into the rhythm of my workplace now and things are going well. I don't have any concrete plans for the immediate future but I'm working on preparing myself for what may or may not happen, and financially I'm getting back on track with some savings again. I still believe that down the track I want to leave this town; not for running away from my problems but rather taking on a life and surrounding I think is better suited to me.

I'm not from here, I never will be. While I've met amazing people, I don't think I should have to feel bad for not feeling like I'm entirely at home here. Even if it's a case of doing some more travel and finding myself lost in a city I've never been to, or roaming the streets of fantasy towns to find myself, I'm ready and waiting with my passports in hand.

The Awkward Moment When Angry Boys Is As Disappointing As Planking Resulting In Death.

I've spent the last hour trying to sync my blogger to my facebook comments, but alas, my Html skills or lack thereof have left me giving up.

I watched Angry Boys earlier, along with thousands of others and I can't help but feel disappointed. While I didn't expect it to live up to Summer Heights High's reputation, I still felt it wouldn't be as sell out as it seems to be. HBO have given Chris Lilley a big budget to blow us away with his new 12 part series, yet I think the pressure for him to create a comedy series on par with Summer Heights High and appeal to American audiences too has been lost in the attempt. I've never been a real fan of the Nathan/Daniel storyline, and felt using Jonah, as the quintessential angry boy perhaps would have been more fitting to carry on to the next show.

Afterwards I ended up watching an ABC segment on internet fads, obsolete websites and using social media for new purposes which I found particularly interesting. The domination of Facebook over other websites which are hardly accessed anymore (Myspace, Bebo, etc) makes me wonder what allowed Facebook to catapult into its current success over the other forms of social networking.

While they all have the ability to find friends, see photographs and message people, Facebook's group's (who can be created by any user) seem to project a statement or a form of social commentary in a fast receiving, zeitgeist hungry dominated information age.

Considering that I learned of Osama Bin Laden's death not initially by a news report, but a facebook group, it provides a critique of the technological culture that's dominating not only how we receive information, but also discuss it. Even as the Royal Wedding was broadcast, facebook groups were simultaenously being created to offer perspectives, opinions and comical comments before the couple had even been wed.


While I would speculate that a vast majority of users who are involved in the creation and activity of facebook groups are from younger generations, recent news events and public commentary have shown people in all age groups are actively engaging in new forms of digesting the zeitgeist.

Planking, for instance. While it's seemingly began as a astronomical facebook fad that's also resulted in a tragic death, this web craze has seen both social mediums and newspapers and broadcasters discuss it heavily.

Phrases like "the awkward moment..." emerging from facebook are seemingly on their way to becoming infamous, and while I find most of these groups funny and can spot the difference between harmless fun and potential danger, it does lead me to worrying in the direction my generation's commentary on news and current affairs is heading towards. Will facebook in itself become an institution not only for discussion of current events in a satirical manner but also a source for gaining information on the happenings of the world?

Perhaps it's a case of balancing the suitability of social commentary alongside the freedom of speech (however insensitive) it may be. Perhaps it's better to joke about current events and have more people be interested in current affairs than not take interest at all.

I suppose in an age when a news report can be the laughing stock of a website for a day but soon lost into the endless abyss of long forgotten information, we've just got to roll with it, and if all else fails, refresh.

Rockingham's Rep: Seaside Suburb or Juvenille Playground?

For The Love of Writing.

This was a piece I wrote for an assignment last November. Interview with Barry Sammels took place in November 2010.


I live in Rockingham.

I already know what you’re thinking. I must have a baby, and spend my whole weekends at Liquid Nightclub with juveniles who’s idea of dressing up is buttoning up their flannelette shirts, or throwing on a top for clubbing thinking it suffices for a dress. I must spend my free time cruising the isles of Kmart barefoot, eat chips and gravy on a daily basis and drive a Commodore.

It's not the case.

By day, Rockingham is an up and coming seaside city that boasts family maritime fun and a chic café culture, and by night it is a seedy playground of juvenile delinquents and rowdy bogans. Western Australian media has educated us all of the type of person that lives in Rockingham: hoon drivers, binge drinkers, people that slit innocent people’s throats in the Reject Shop, and we all know you won’t fit in if you don’t conceive a baby before the age of 16.

The images of stereotypical bogan characters have been splashed across Facebook pages, chatted about with friends and discussed within the media. Rockingham has become a poster town for cashed up bogans, young single parents and Perth’s finest felons.

Starting uni and meeting more people who live much closer to Perth, I learned that I live in a suburb that challenges people’s abilities to hold back a grimace upon announcement of where I live; they have to fight it to remain unseen, but it doesn’t work. It never happens. It rushes out onto that person’s face, showering me with their pity. You think I live in a shit hole.

Perhaps I agree.

I didn’t move here by choice. A navy brat since birth, my family have been shipped, quite literally – around the world and HMAS Stirling was dad’s drafting in 2004. On first impressions, Rockingham’s seaside city was much more appealing than they tiny Victorian town we’d spent our last few months in, and the fierce heat of January’s summer was the Perth-ect time to arrive. The beach had sand and glistening clear waters, very unlike the pebble ridden and freezing beaches of England’s North East.

I began high school and settled in to the quieter way of Western Australian life. As the years have rolled by, and I began uni, it was brought even further to my attention how our surrounding suburb neighbours perceive the town, and its residents that provide its legacy.

Since I've lived here, I've learnt of slang words, and the characters behind the words such as “bogan,” “juvie” and the quintessential teenage mum. I've been to the town's two nightclubs, Liquids (Liquos), and Vibe, which generally hosts at least one fight per evening and requests finger print scanners before accepting entry for extra safety precautions. I've also witnessed fights, and to use a euphemism: "interactions" to which have left a ghastly imprint upon my mind.

I've learned to avoid the "fully sick" pimped up cars on the road that will weave in and out of lanes, and nearly crash into you before spurting across another section of traffic while their subs blast a doof doof beat. I've even had 'tude on the road from a gang of boys on Mopeds - not motorbikes, but you can ride at 14 little motors that they seemed to believe were Harleys as they dodged in front of me and other cars and mistook their hoodies for leather jackets, and their idiocy for bikie confidence.

It’s more so the culture of Rockingham, or rather, the mentality of the suburb that causes news headlines. I've met amazing people in this town, who work hard, pay their taxes, are clever, respectable and decent people, but I've also met people who seem to accept the notion that, if they're from here, they may as well accept the laid back bogan mentality that is so deeply nestled within Rockingham's culture, and live "down" to such media representations.

I'm not advocating that if you're a "bogan" you're a social nuisance, but if you use that image to double up with causing trouble, committing crime and being an idiot you are responsible for why many people believe the whole of Rockingham's residents live by the same values.

It may look better these days; the shopping centre has undergone a $160 million redevelopment, the foreshore is being taken over by swanky penthouse apartments and the café strip has had a makeover of glitzy cocktail bars and restaurants. However this impressive backdrop does not throw a blanket over the news reports of crime associated with the suburb, and the general reputation of this crime and juvenile poster town amongst Western Australians.

Rockingham’s Mayor, Barry Sammels highlights that issues regarding hoon driving, graffiti and antisocial behaviour don’t just stem from one suburb, but are affecting towns all over Australia. He believes Rockingham to not have a tainted reputation and a great place to live, but rather that he can’t control what the media says about the suburb.

“Our council is working with the police, the City Safe committee and security safety patrols to protect the residents of Rockingham,” he explains.

“Graffiti teams have been employed along with CCTV cameras to alleviate some of the city’s problems.”

While it may be the brunt of your jokes and an easy target for suburb haters (and I'll note myself under this title too), it has still been an interesting place to spend the last 7 years of my life, to which I will always carry with me.

Perhaps it's the endless narrative that one spoils it for the rest, but hey, at least where I live gets talked about.

Being deaf was the death of that dream.

I have a disability. I suppose I've always seen it as my quirk, and not really as a hindrance. I am deaf in my right ear, though unless you found it unusual that I tilt my head or stand on a particular side to someone most people wouldn't know until I mentioned it.

It's never affected me in my school life or employment. I've misheard the occasional instruction but it's always been quickly rectified and I am so accustomed to being deaf that it doesn't bother me often.

Until today, I didn't believe my four and a half senses would prevent me from seeking a job in the defence force, though I learned today that it does. I had considered it prior to applying, but because my left ear is perfect in hearing I assumed I would have no issue, though unfortunately this isn't the case.

I'd set my heart on joining in the last month, especially after the recent horrific events that forced me to leave my last job and question my decision to move to London. I knew I wanted to leave Perth, and start afresh in a new city, and beginning a career in addition seemed like the best way to do it - especially when that career consists of a range of traveling.

I was upset today when I learned I can't progress in my application, but now I've had some time to digest the news (along with having a lazy afternoon and buy a feel good from Wheels & Dollbaby), I'm coming to the conclusion that what is meant to happen will, and surely my luck will change soon. Everything that happens are steps to getting us to our overall plan I believe, so hopefully this plan will unravel soon.

For now, I'm going to make the most of my new job, and just see where the wind takes me.

"I Made You From Scratch."

I love that phrase. "I made you from scratch." The genetic makeup, the partnership of your parents, the unbearable childbirth you'll always be gently teased about and the years that have followed are the reason we are all here today. I've been told and I have no doubt myself that the bond and the love that comes with motherhood is the most powerful emotion in the world.

It's often easy to disregard this powerful part of life in our day to day occurrences, and perhaps if I never bear a child I will never understand the feeling completely. What I know is that I've inherited my mum's bubbly personality, her poem writing for friends, her loyalty and most of all, her strength. My mum is a fighter and does not allow problems (especially her health problems) to get in her way, or fights through the pain with her smile and ability to be strong.


I've been lucky to have an amazing mum, along with an amazing dad that have made sure our family has been always looked after and given the opportunities they've deemed my brother and I deserve. We have moved about, but always with the family's best interests at heart and the hope that by migrating they have sealed our success in the future along with providing a happier and more fulfilling life now. Aside from the lovely home we live in, the

In the last month especially I've had to rely on both my parents more than I would have anticipated. When faced with a difficult decision to make they made no effort to sway me but promised to support whatever I chose. They've helped me feel so much better and especially safe in what I would probably describe as the worst few weeks of my life, and I know that my ability to not let this destroy me has been helped by them.

So on Mother's Day I'm saying the things that making you a coffee or picking you up or cleaning my room all add up to - that I love you, very much, and although I'm grown up now I'll always be your poppet. x

No Means No.

Some people are naturally obnoxious, and often unaware of that fact. I've had the displeasure of meeting someone who attains those qualities recently; and he doesn't seem to listen to anything that I say.

I've started a new job, and on my first day of meeting a new colleague, he'd found out we live in the same area and wanted a lift by telling me I'd be giving him one every day. While I assumed at first he was joking, he kept persisting with his suggestion emphasising that "my student fare has run out so it's pretty expensive for me now."

While I'd laughed it off and he spent the rest of the day bossing me about (he's not the manager), and telling me what to do (I had a previous similar job for three years that I know like the back of my hand), I asked him how long he'd worked there for.

"A month."

Hardly qualifies him to be the CEO of all things in the workplace, but he seems to project that through his ego, though he admitted he's never processed half the orders he was talking about and I had to teach him quite a few things yesterday. He's the kind of salesman that is so desperate for the sale you'd think it was his next breath; it's the kind of persistence that makes me uncomfortable and cringe, even from just watching as the customer backs off, and he is persistent with his questions too.

I decided to ask why he chose to work so far away if he doesn't have a licence to drive to work, and that prior to me working there, he must have been getting to work fine.

While carpooling and giving lifts has never been an issue for me before, recent events have left me wary of new people and trusting people in potentially dangerous situations. Irrespective of that, his sudden "pop quizzes", tech-not-so-savvy bullshit and minor bullying on the other girl have given me enough plenty of reason to decline spending any more time with him per day than physically required.

He asked me again.

"No means no."

I also provided him with an adequate reason that provided enough evidence for hesitating.

The following day, he asked if I'd be ready in two weeks when we have a late night stocktake. How am I meant to predict my level of comfort in a fortnight when I'd provided sufficient reasons as to why not.

Surely saying no is sufficient enough.

Perhaps people need to consider that they can't take advantage of a convenient situation with no regard to how the other person may feel. Perhaps they shouldn't have the audacity to even ask a stranger (especially persistently after being rejected) for anything that could be potentially dangerous.

Perhaps their egotistical, opportunistic, devoid of conscience, arrogant and pathetic selves should penetrate into their deluded minds that simply:

"No means NO!"

M'aidez.

1st May - Mayday.

Mayday! Mayday!

It derives from the French: "M'aidez."

"Help me."

The symbolism surrounding my sister's death is as curious as comprehending the reasons of why she had even left this world. The public holiday in England known as Mayday was the day in which the news of her death reached us all, at her starved age of 22. Perhaps it was a cry for help in itself; a traditionally military call.

I won't deny that in the time leading up to her death, I had little to no idea of what kind of person she'd become as we'd moved away from England and she'd grown up in the meanwhile. None the less, I'd carry the hope with me that we'd get to become reacquainted in the future.

A profound element to this terrible day was always thinking about my dad, and Kelly's mum and the unnatural notion of burying your child. I was young enough when it happened to be overcome by shock and a determined attitude to be resilient and try to carry on with regular life as best our family could.

I feel speaking about a death always causes controversy, but I'm writing in a place which is mine. I'm not asking for sympathy, but writing about an event that has had an impact on many people. I'm continually devastated that this ever happened. It upsets me to know I'll never have another chance to know her, and that our family have lost someone. It also frustrates me that opinions surrounding her death, relations and family affairs seem to direct anger to parties that weren't responsible.

We'll never know why. Just as we never know exactly why love dissolves, why marriages fall apart, friendships end, people become ill, innocent people die or any other tragic events of life.

So this is to project into a speculative and unknown world that I hope, 5 years on, Kelly has found her peace, and when life takes us all into the darkness we will find ours too.