Posts by Jackie Clark
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My personal experience of the Internet began in 1994, I believe. Ian had a computer on which he played war games, and I was very disparaging. "I'd rather read a book" I opined. And then he came home with this thing, called the Internet and had us linked up with some company which I can't even remember the name of, and at some point that became iHug, or maybe we switched, I don't remember, and I haven't looked back. Back then there were chatrooms. HTML ones, in which conversations were excruciatingly slow. I used Ask Jeeves a lot but I seem to remember that there was this thing, and I can't remember the name of it, which was like a word cloud. I was fascinated by it. Then Java arrived on the scene, and chat became a lot easier. My most used chat forums at the time were on Delphi, and it was the first time I made friends online. That was succeeded by Xtrachat which was vile - there were many meet-ups of some really interesting and quite dire characters. And I started using messageboards very regularly. Public Address has remained the only one I still use (that and Trademe Pet and Animal forum. Don't judge me.) So my internet experience has gone from a very broad one - I think I belonged to about 7 chatroom forums at one time - to a very narrow one. Whilst the social interactions online in my every day life have moved in the same way and yet, at the same time, expanded my circles of friends, and acquaintances, in this really quite miraculous way. Astounding thing. Happy Birthday WWW.
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Notes & Queries: Little CD in a Prospect…, in reply to Scooter Motoretta,
There are so many things I want to say to you. There is a temptation to say things which I'm afraid will be wrong - patronising, insulting. I don't know you so I don't know how what I say will appear to you.
So I'll start with this.
I'm glad you are here, Scooter.
(And I would never laugh at anyone sticking around because of their beloved animal companion. Animals show no judgement, listen when we need them to, and love us unconditionally . Well, that's only dogs, to be fair. Cats are choosy.) -
Capture: Dogs Love Cameras Too, in reply to Chris Waugh,
Breaks my heart.
Meanwhile, this is what Ruby does to people she really loves. -
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Hard News: Poor Choices, in reply to Emma Hart,
I taught Georgia McCarten who was killed at the age of 4 by a car driven by a young man. This was almost 10 years ago. The media tried to turn it into a thing about Asian Drivers. Her mother would not let them.
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I really think the more we talk about this - suicide - the better. I'm with Virgina - we so tend to go with head in the sand and it's not working. There are a number of reasons for our high suicide rate, I believe - a high rate of mental unwellness and lack of resources for mental health in this country, and a real reluctance to tackle our culture of blame around mental health. People with poor mental health are vilified and made fun of - Whaleoil was an obvious target, as have been others - and there's also this onus for those needing help to reach out. That's not always possible when someone is feeling depressed. By nature, depression causes the person to withdraw, to isolate themselves. I believe the emphasis should be about us reaching in, walking beside that person.
To that end, I've recently had the fortune to read a couple of really valuable things.
The first is something I believe has been widely seen by many:
10 Ways to Show Love to Someone With Depression
and the second is something my friend Jane wrote in response to DHC's column, which I posted on my blog.
Depression needs a new name.
I found great value in both of these pieces. And I would hope that we can find a way to talk about mental health, in the future, in a way that does not stigmatise, but instead embraces and seeks to understand. -
Virginia, I am so sorry that your son suicided. I am also very glad that you shared a bit of your story. Thank you.
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Server that hosts blog is currently down, sorry about that.
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