Hidden story

I am stashing this here just in case

I have been trying to write my life story for perhaps the past 6-8 weeks. But I keep on letting hampered and harmed. Especially when I write stuff down. It’s actually very difficult to cope.

Dump of emails:

Unsure if helpful. Probably not.

Everything here is "as is where is".

Hi David

Of course I remember you, David.

I actually remember everyone really well from ACCY306 FSA in 2008. I have studied your learning and the learning of everyone in the course for my PhD.

So you are more likely to forget me, than me forget you. :)

Have you been making some progress with your cfs? Given all the trouble I had with this when I was at uni, I was very concerned for you.

I have written a slightly more user friendly version of my PhD, entitled Experience of Learning Accounting. A few people from the course have read it. You can play pick the quote - there are a number of quotes from you in the PhD. All are anonymous.

I would be very interested in your reactions and responses.

Keep in touch, David. Quite a few of my past students drop me a line from time to time to let me know how they are getting on. I really like it.

Regards.

Martin

On Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 10:45 AM, David Solt <davidsolt@hotmail.com> wrote:

Hi Martin,

You probably don't remember me: I'm a former ACCY306 student of yours, I also helped with some marking (ACCY001) and spreadsheet stuff, before dropping out due to cfs.

I heard from Chris that you were celebrating the completion of your PhD, so congratulations on finishing that. It's quite an accomplishment to add to collection of degrees. I would have liked to congratulate you in person on Sunday, but I had a prior engagement. I was meeting my baby half-sister for the first time, which ended up taking a lot longer than expected.

Some time ago, I expressed interest in reading your thesis and you said you might send me a copy of your thesis. Now that it is finished, would you be able to send me an electronic copy?

Regards,

David Solt

***

Hi Guys

Martin Turner is back in town in case you didn’t know. He’s having a PhD celebration gig at his house this Sunday, 22 Duthie Street, Karori, from 3pm, and wanted me to extend an invite. I’d add in some more contacts, but am feeling a bit sleepy from fish n chip lunch... feel free to pass on to your pals.

Not the best way to spend a Sunday afternoon I know, especially if chatting with academics in the suburbs whilst being hung-over is not really your thing, but please don’t make me the stinky guy in the corner that no one talks to.

Cheers!

Chris

***

Hi David

Great to hear you are feeling a lot better now.

I actually got very sick myself when I was at uni as a student - I came down with a very bad dose of ME or chronic fatigue syndrome. I got sick just before I needed to complete my Honours thesis!

Good to hear you are thinking of doing Honours. I think you would be very suited to it - I enjoyed my honours year in accounting (its basically where I learnt in some depth my accounting, actually...). And, of course, it is excellent preparation if your thinking of becoming an academic.

I would be delighted for you to read my PhD. I might give it to you to read when it is near the final draft stage - perhaps with just some editing and tidying up to do. This might be in a few months time. I would be interested in your reactions and responses to my findings - whether you agree with them or not; whether you think I am off the mark to some extent or not. I think you might find it a rather fascinating read, havng been a student in the class being studied.

Regards.

Martin

________________________________

From: David Solt [davidsolt@hotmail.com]

Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 6:13 PM

To: Martin Turner

Subject: RE: How is the research going?

Hi Again

I would like to read the PhD and/or the document on the findings. 80000 words isn't too painful, I've read books online before. Just send it through once you're done (if you don't mind me reading it that is!).

"I have realised my constant repetition of 'how to learn' was serious over-kill - pretty everyone 'got it' very quickly. Also, everyone was unbelievably patient with all the surveys we had. The nos of surveys was unbelievable...."

I can agree with this, we 'got it', and were ready to move on a little while before you realised it. I just took the surveys as though they were arbitrary terms requirements, just as in many other courses.

After looking at the course catalogue for accy306, I thought that you might not be teaching it (the description of the course sounded rather different). Anyway, I enjoyed the course, and I know I wasn't the only one.

I wasn't able to attend university last year (I got very sick at the start of the university year), but my health has improved a lot now. I've just started my university idea, and should hopefully finish my undergraduate degree at the end of this year. I'm planning on doing honours, but that's a little way off yet.

-David

> From: Martin.Turner@vuw.ac.nz

> To: davidsolt@hotmail.com

> Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2010 17:47:41 +1300

> Subject: RE: How is the research going?

> Hi Dav id

> Good to hear from you.

> Yes - my PhD is going well. I'm in the write-up stage - 80,000 words in 8 chapters plus appendices etc. The 'textbook' I wrote for ACCY306 Financial Statement Analysis was 80,000 words in 8 chapters - it was practice of writing that much interconnected text - and my PhD will be written in the same style, with four sections in each chapter, quotes sprinkled through it and so on.

> I have found it extraordinarily interesting to analyse the data I have from everyone in the course ... I am planning to write a 2,000 word document on my findings once I finish my PhD - you might find it very interesting to read this!

> I have realised my constant repetition of 'how to learn' was serious over-kill - pretty everyone 'got it' very quickly. Also, everyone was unbelievably patient with all the surveys we had. The nos of surveys was unbelievable....

> Farzana Tanima from the course is starting a PhD in Accounting this year at Vic Uni - I have suggestd she might like to read my PhD and see what she thinks of it - whether she agrees with my analysis or not!

> The spreadsheet project was completed. We have 350 spreadsheets to support teaching DCF and economic valuation approaches - and they are really, really excellent. Thanks for your work on this project. Unfortunately, I have yet to try them out as we could not use them for the ACCY306 course last year, as it was 70% exams. And the MBA course on FSA that I teach was not offered last year!

> I am also leaving Vic Uni in June this year - my contract expires in June and the professors in the school have decided not to renew it. I'm not sure what I will do next - but my academic 'career' may come to a rather abrupt end, I am afraid....

> What are you up to, David? I hope your health has improved. Have you finished uni? Will you perhaps be graduating in May?

> Regards.

> Martin

> ________________________________

> From: David Solt [davidsolt@hotmail.com]

> Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 1:48 PM

> To: Martin Turner

> Subject: How is the research going?

> Hi Martin

> I'm just sending an email to ask how your phd research is going. Are you close to being finished?

> Also, how have you gone re: the project with the spreadsheets, and accy306?

> -David Solt

[[david added a note in 2026: I was overly optimistic, stating that I had improved and hoped to finish my degree and do honours... I was unwell. Sometimes I in the past would act like things were fine. It was perhaps a mistake]]

I just noticed from my emails that I tutored bookkeeping 001, or marked it. A paid job. No, I just marked it. Before the spreadsheets. Martin and I used to email one another back quite a bit.

Update:

****

Random stream of text. Just relax. It is fine. It’s low quality. But glean what you can.

What next...

Mention that I did some Alexander technique, and it helped to relieve symptoms, but it didn't solve problems.

I then gave up on it. Because it just relieved symptoms, but didn't solve problems. And trying to "do" the technique just made me feel worse. It is complicated. I will explain. It more later.

Mention that they (cell towers) made my back much, much worse. And then I tried to solve it with lots of physio which made me worse. Much worse. I tried the Alexander technique, which relieved symptoms.

Mention that I had really bad digestion. And wasn't helped. Even after getting second opinions! I was blocked from proper health care! At one point, I was solidly in danger. There was things Ike psyllium husk in quantity, and they used electronic machines to drain moisture from colon. Like, dangerous. And had to resort to other means.

They were prescribing the wrong stuff, and not explaining. And not diagnosing things properly. I am not giving you full explanation yet. But I will later, if I get a chance.

Next, there was an incident where I had tons of back issues and problems. I actually lost the ability to even lay down to rest. And I could not read books. And chronic pain.

My family pushed me to go to a doctor, I saw one associated with my family. From way back in the day. She shoved anti depressants down my throat. Even though i said they give me problems. And they did give me problems. They then were hitting my body with em attacks nervous system, harming my back. I already can't lay down to rest, relax or sleep. Due to my back. Bear with me here, this isn't fully explained. I end up having some sort of breakdown thing (orchestrated by my mother, mother in law, and doctor). They drive me to the doctors to get me on other medication, any psychotics this time, and to get me signed up to mental health services.

And I'm like, I see the writing on the wall here.

I know I'm physically unwell, but they and others pretend that I am not.

Also, my father had made veiled threats about mental health service, which I will explain. This was all years ago.

I hope that I can write it all up in due course.

And then I couldn't walk properly.

I just couldn't. The remote control stuff meant that I go for walks, lay down to rest, go and play computer games, and all of that sort of stuff. Now if I had known what was wrong, perhaps I could have worked around it, but they fact of the matter is that I couldn't. Dot forget that I had already had years of problems, and lots of physio, multiple physio therapists, multiple Alexander technique teachers and a bunch of lessons. And I had had "chronic fatigue syndrome", bad sleep, and horrible symptoms of many kinds. And a real threat of severe intestinal harm, Ignored and mistreated by doctors. I had had run ins with mental health services, and doctors gave me extremely dangerous anti depressants and physiotherapists damaged and harmed me instead of helping me. Amanda had stuck by me (in sickness and in health). And I couldn't count on my family.

Also, I build up in 2015 the ability to walk. But I still couldn't manage basics like laying down in bed to read.

Mum gave me advice sometimes. I hardly talked to dad. Visits from family were unpleasant physically. Mum advised me to take a particular supplement called xtend life, it was expensive. But didn't do much. I took it for ages. She also tried to get me to listen to a guy selling organic freeze dried turnip powder, and to join chronic fatigue support groups. My dad told me to go to the lightening therapy. I tried two councillors. A Christian one, and a secular counsellor. I also visited grandpa. But the strain to by body's as such that I actually got varicose veins on my left leg. It's incredible. Just a drive to visit grandpa and back again. He died a few weeks later. This has all been a stream in consciousness writing thing. I hope it helps you to glean informaion. It's all pre 2017.

****

Parts Five and Six

These include 2009 and 2010

Not sure where to start.

I had to drop out.

Then… saw Amanda Clarke.

A general practitioner at Kapiti youth support, the local clinic.

She helped me get the sickness benefit. And. Got me a diagnosis confirmed. I forget if it was Susie poon first. I think that it was Susie poon. But I needed to switch to the sickness benefit.

What else?

She referred me to plenty of other people.

We did a bunch of tests. And she referred me to a bunch of people that she “knew” from university. David Waite (neurology department at Wellington hospital), Doctor Roberts (out patient clinic qnd “specialist” in cfs) and Alistair Neill, respiratory clinic, for a sleep study. She also sent me to TBI (the back institute) for my back problems. Amanda Clarke was deliberately unhelpful.

None of those doctors or the physio was helpful at all. In fact, the physio actually made me worse. None of them told me the truth about my back problems (cell towers), my energy problems (cell towers) or digestive problems. They were all awful and useless. What’s more, is that they lied again and again about the causes were, and didn’t bother to offer me things like basic medicine for basic problems. Such as osmotic laxatives for my digestive troubles…

What else, asked mum and dad for help and advice. Useless advice.

Asked friends like Jesse for ideas.

Asked the elders to pray for me.

Was on the church prayer list. My grandparents prayer list too.

Grandparents drove me to doctor’s appointments.

I was sick for these two years. And it was horrible. I was tired all of the time, and couldn’t recover. Everybody knew, but everyone kept me in the dark.

I was unwell. Bad symptoms like before.

I how I can write about it in detail.

Ps: there is a thing on my other where I put all of my records online. Not useful for most people. But what is there is there.

She referred me straight to a neurologist friend working in the neurology department.

She did things like ordering a Glucose Tolerance test.

She could have just told me plainly what was wrong.

In plain clear English.

I also tried coq10.

I maybe have to do some serious writing. I’m exhausted.

********

Life story part three and four

David: And so I went off to university. I actually don’t know where to start. This is part three, and maybe part four of my life story. Where shall we start?

Sally: I get the feeling that this might be a long part of your overall story. Tell me about your major, and where you were living, and then go from there. We can talk about things like your health, your family and your social life later.

David: Okay, we will start there. I signed up for a degree in commerce and administration at Victoria University. My majors were accounting and finance. What else happened over those two years is that Amanda and I got married, and moved in together. And my health was awful. Those are the main things. I tried a lot of things, to try to recover my health, and none of them worked. I kept on getting worse. I sought advice from a lot of family members. And also I saw doctors and physiotherapists. I was diagnosed with “chronic fatigue syndrome”, not that that label helped me at all. I had to drop out at the start of my third year.

The cause of my health problems was mostly that cell towers sent electromagnetic signals to my body (and nervous system), telling it to be unwell. I was already unwell from the trip overseas, but the cell towers caused me to remain unwell. There was some “analogue” stuff that disrupted my life as well, such as persistent, repeated and deliberate sleep deprivation.

David: Okay then, let’s get on with it.

Sally: Why did you choose accounting and finance?

David: I didn’t want to be poor. My parents hadn’t always had a ton of money while I was growing up. They had owned small businesses, had been in debt ever since I was born, they argued about money and had always had problems with things like dishonest thieving staff and break-ins at their shops. I didn’t want to have problems like that, and I just wanted to be able to make good money without breaking my back doing it. For what it is worth, they actually won awards for their businesses (such as business of the year in Taupo), but still had money troubles. And also I had just got engaged.

I had thought about doing engineering or science. Or perhaps becoming a lawyer or school teacher. But I wasn’t so sure about those. At one point I had considered doing a bachelor of science at Massey University (majoring in Computer Science and Physics), and had actually applied for a place in the Baptist Youth Hostel in Palmerston North. Which I was offered, but turned down. I also at one point signed up for an engineering degree (specialising in software engineering) at Massey University in Wellington. But I didn’t enjoy programming, and found it to be very frustrating. I sort of loved it, but wasn’t sure about the prospect of all of that documentation! And I wasn’t sure about a life always sat in front of a computer. I had thought about becoming a video game designer, but I had heard bad things about careers in video game design. I had also heard bad things about careers in science or engineering. Such as that you need a PhD before you can do anything in sciences and that the pay isn’t amazing. Or that for engineering you have to move to new locations to find the sort of work you’re interested in or qualified for. In the end, I chose to do a business degree at Victoria University in Wellington. I had done well in accounting, economics and statistics in school, as well as in mathematics in general. So I was good at the right sort of subjects. It was all a little bit “last minute”, but it all got sorted out in the end.

On the other hand, I also wanted to be an entrepreneur/inventor. I kind of had the feeling that I ought be able to do that anyway. And also learn to do computer programming and game design as well. And do these things on my own time and in my own way. I used to say that I just wanted the piece of paper, and I could learn or do whatever I wanted. I was extremely confident in my abilities to learn things, make money and to be an “ideas guy”. Whether the ideas be in finance, inventiveness, video games or whatever else. But all the same while I was at university, I devoted myself, truly devoted myself to learning the stuff. I *talked* about “just a piece of paper”, but I actually studied and got good marks. And I did wide reading around the topics that I studied. I really wanted to learn a lot, and I was surprised by how much good stuff there is to learn at a university. I love learning and improving my mind. Furthermore, I was a firm believer in the idea that you should never let your schooling get in the way of your education, so I was always learning everything I could in every possible way, especially from books. I loved reading, and still do. And then of course I said that you need the option of getting a good day job, and accounting is good anywhere in the world, so why not do accounting.

Anyway, so I ended up at Victoria University studying Accounting and Finance as part of a business degree.

Note: I also thought that social entrepreneurship seemed appealing to me.

Note 2: I felt that I was smart enough to get things done and create good products and inventions, or otherwise to successfully make money. Or perhaps to solve problems for other people. But I didn’t count on health problems or energy issues.

***

I got back from my trip to Europe early in 2007, and went to stay at Amanda’s mother’s home at 5 Weka Road. It became my home. I was sick from my overseas trip. I had been hit by a lot of things on that trip. And I was obviously sick and unwell when I arrived at Weka Road, and I remained unwell. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get enough sleep, and I was always exhausted. I just had bone crushing exhaustion and awful. I would sleep until 12 or 1 pm, have broken sleep, and be exhausted anyway. I also had the weirdest symptom of dry mouth, and was always extremely thirsty, my mind was shot, and foggy. And I just felt horrible in a generalised way.

Anyway, I was living there. I wasn’t speaking to my mother (she had been horrible to me! I was so unwell! I never bounced back from that trip!). Things between my father and I were a little bit strained, because he hasn’t offered support to me (or even acknowledged that I was unwell) when I was unwell. He plainly blanked me on that trip. Amanda and I had got engaged the previous year, which also caused a little bit of a kerfuffle, but strangely he hadn’t kicked up much of a fuss at the time! He didn’t love the idea.

Sally: please stay focussed.

David: Yes, okay. I will stay focussed.

Okay, I was now in New Zealand, staying at 5 Weka Road. I was unwell. I was sick. I felt horrible. Last year I had been healthy, fit and strong. And now I wasn’t. Which was alarming. And I also couldn’t exercise. Which was concerning. I was with Amanda, and we were engaged to be married. We were going off to university soon.

I will tell you more about 5 Weka Road. It is a four bedroom house in Raumati Beach, Kapiti Coast. It is about 3-4 minutes away from the shops, and about 4-5 minutes away from the beach itself. It is about 5-6 minutes walk away from where Amanda and I Iater got married and had our reception. Amanda had lived in Raumati Beach for years. Shane and Lesley owned the house jointly iirc. It was an okay house, if perhaps a little cold and sometimes a little damp (especially the front room, which was just a converted garage). The property also had drainage issues, and tended to get waterlogged. The front garden/lawn would sometimes flood and stay flooded for days on end. The had four cats and one dog. The waterfront near Raumati Village is very nice. We’re right beside a sand my beach there. And kapiti coast is sunny (a bit windy is the only issue, but it’s very nice in summer).

And so I stayed there for some weeks. It was a few weeks before University started, and then a few weeks commuting to university before I moved to my Grandfather’s house in Wellington (we didn’t call him Grandfather, we called him papa, he was my father’s father. From now on I will refer to him as Papa). I didn’t enjoy commuting into Wellington from Kapiti. It was gruelling and I was exhausted. Why was it so tiring? I was tired because I was already tired, exhausted and unwell from my overseas trip, and because I never recovered from it. And because they kept on using these electromagnetic weapons on my body to harm me, and to cause me to directly experience fatigue. But still, all the same, I enjoyed some aspects of the experience of starting at university. I enjoyed borrowing books from the library, and going to my lectures, and buying my textbooks and course notes and readings. I really was very excited to be going to university, which sounds a bit geeky, but I thought that I would like it. There were so many things to do and to join. Which is one of the reasons that it was so disappointing, because I was too sick to do the things I really wanted to, to join clubs, try sports, meet people, make friends, network very well, join the gym, and all of the other cool things you can do at university. So I had a few or several weeks in Kapiti. And then I moved into Wellington.

My father and I talked together about my finding a better place to stay in town, and we settled on my Papa’s house. He lives there with his second wife Eva. And his two youngest children Marton and Andrew/Andras (“ond-drash”). He was originally from Hungary, from which he fled in 1956, along with his Mother, Father and Sister.

David: Do you mind if I describe the house for a bit? I’m trying to paint a picture for the audience that will probably be listening to this a little bit later. As well as Takeo, Murray, Sophia and Jimmy, who are all suspiciously quiet at the moment.

All (Takeo, Murray, Sophia and Jimmy): Hi David, we don’t mind that Sally is doing the interviewing. She is doing a perfectly good job so far.

Sally: Yes please? Tell me more about your Papa’s house.

David: Okay, it was a massive house that spread out over three floors and was built into the side of a hill. And it was right beside Kelburn tunnel. They had a childcare centre on the bottom floor, and on half of the middle floor. And on the other half of the middle floor they had a guest room (with bathroom) and the study. And a huge, absolutely enormous amount of mess. The whole study area and adjoining room was full of complete and utter rubbish. My room was on the middle floor. The room I lived in was the same room that my father had lived in as teenager, while he was in his late teens. And perhaps even once he had finished school and was training to be a youth pastor. Or maybe that came later. He was massively religious before he turned bad. The top floor contained the dining room, lounge, kitchen and most of the bedrooms. The family all slept upstairs. The house was old, and a little musty. But very warm. Unlike most New Zealand houses, it was thoroughly warmed. It had a gas furnace under the stairs that pumped out lots of warm air all day long, and it wafted up through the flight of stairs between the top and middle floor. I never knew the heater to be switched off. It was warm all the time. It was never cold in that house. I guess in summer it must have been off sometimes.

I grew up visiting that house sometimes. It was one of my three grandparents homes in that town (Wellington). I also grew up spending time with Marton and Andras. And so when my father acts like I was a “runaway”, I was actually in Wellington living at his father’s house. Marton and Andras were Papa’s second set of kids. Technically they were my half Uncles, but really they were more like cousins to me. They were younger than me. We used to play together in the childcare centre downstairs sometimes, with the toys and in the playground after the youngsters had left (they had an enormous supply of wooden bricks down there). They had a very nice cherry tree beside the walkway to the door. We sometimes played with the neighbouring kids growing up there. Matthew and I sometimes stayed there for a few days. It was a part of our childhood being there. What I am saying is that we spent time with these people (later in life: Papa was falsely accused of being a bad person and a pedophile, but I don’t think he was. There was a court case. I think it was a hit job, a take down, and then he got medicated. I think it gave him dementia. Perhaps anti psychotics. Some sort of foul play occurred).

Anyway, my room was on the middle floor. In the same floor as the study, which was chocka with junk. In the study, Papa’s old welding rods (which he used to sell) were stacked in cubbies against the wall, the computer desk was covered in rubbish, the whole floor was filled with junk, and just a path to the computer existed. My room was just across from it. Andrew/Andras (two years younger) used to play dota or other games in the study, sometimes along with me. When I first moved in, I had to do school work on their PC because we didn’t have a good internet connection. We fairly quickly had better internet installed, and ran a cable over to my computer.

I played a lot of games while I was there! I admit it. Computer game addict! Guilty as charged! I played a lot of DotA there (back when it was still fun). And played Natural Selection, which is a fantastic game (it’s basically halfway between Quake, Counterstrike, Team Fortress Classic and Halo 2). Anyway, I played a lot of games while I was staying there.

My room had a bathroom, with a shower, basin and toilet. It also had a large windows, a closet and a small wardrobe, and a desk that was falling apart. If I opened the cupboard, the gas furnace was in there. The wardrobe contained all of my clothes. The room was overlooking the Kelburn tunnel. It was an okay place to live. But there was a lot of exhaust fumes from the tunnel, some gas fumes sometimes from the furnace. And lots of noise from the daycare next door. The food was also a joke. They sometimes served ridiculous things.

What did they serve? Sometimes plain macaroni elbows, with grated cheese. Sometimes parsley soup. Sometimes just weird stuff. Sometimes mashed potatoes with silver beet in it. It was odd. On the weekend I came back once and found that they had been cooking apricot chicken or something nice. Like chicken breasts baked in the oven with rice on the side? Something was off about that house. Maybe just soup with a whole onion. The house didn’t make sense.

So anyway, I was at university.

Let us set the scene. I was living in this little room with attached bathroom. The rest of the family (Andras, Marton, Eva and Papa) was up stairs, and the dining room and living room too. He had dementia or something, and wasn’t 110% with it. He was also overweight, had suffered a stroke and a fall down the stairs (separate incidents) and so he lacked mobility. He was always sitting upstairs watching the TV. He just sat in his arm chair watching CNN. I was downstairs playing on my guitar, playing video games, studying, reading, and also texting Amanda. With guitar, I was looking up tabs on ultimateguitar.com, and I was trying to adjust the “action” and “intonation” of my guitar to make it sound and function properly, just like the other guitars in my fathers shop. I also used a guitar forum and I had a big book of “how to learn guitar” given to me as a birthday(?) present by Lesley Jones, my soon to be mother in law. But I wasn’t allowed to really turn up the amp!! Because we had a childcare centre in the house, and indeed on my floor. Not only that, but the room they napped in was literally adjacent to my room. I had better internet installed so that we could better enjoy playing online games and I could more easily get school work done. I liked my readings, I enjoyed having access to the university library, but I felt just grotty and bad the whole time. I was still quite clearly unwell. I’ll talk about my symptoms for a bit, and then what I tried to do about it. I will talk about exercise, martial arts, doctors, counsellors and counselling. I will talk about advice from family and Amanda and my in laws. And I will talk about my time in university itself.

Sally: That seems like a lot to get through!

David: Yes, well it is my life story after all. So let’s get on with it. It’s a long one!

Sally: Yes, let’s.

David: Let us talk about my health first. So I was living at Raroa Road in Kelburn. And I was going to university at Kelburn as well. And I was unwell. I still hadn’t recovered from that trip to Europe, and I was worried! First of all, I was exhausted. I experienced high levels of fatigue. I was very tired. It was the new normal for me. And it was way above normal levels of fatigue. Also, I wasn’t sleeping very well. For example, for a while I would wake up exactly once every 90 minutes. Which is strange, I guess that it was electronic. I would wake up drenched in sweat as well. And it would happen again and again. I had brain fog. I had bad digestion. My digestion was very bad! And I had back problems. I don’t know how to describe them. But I just felt bad. My back felt bad, and things felt “constrained” and tight. I also had issues with controlling my body temperature, and issues relating to sweating. I got this thing called post exertional malaise, which meant that I couldn’t exercise, not really. Whenever I tried to do exercise, I felt very unwell afterwards. That means that when I tried to do things like a ju jitsu class or an aikido class in my first trimester of university, I felt very bad the next two days. This doesn’t mean “delayed onset muscle soreness”. It is something else. It also means that when I tried to do some jogging, brisk walking, yoga classes, swimming or light strength training (such as sit-ups, pushups, squats and bicep curls) that I felt bad for a couple of days. And so I will explain those in a little bit more detail later. And I will explain how the whole health situation affected me, and I will tell you all about talking to the doctors, and to my father, to Amanda, to the counsellor, to the physio and about trying to exercise. And I will flesh things out regarding my health and symptoms in general. I will also talk about how it affected my social life and my ability to attend lectures and classes at university.

[There was also another issue when it came to exercise, which is that my neck and back were chronically tightened up (by remote control) and I just felt maybe a tiny bit constrained in my neck, back and chest. Or maybe that area was just tight. As well as my inner hip, and perhaps inner back muscles (like quadratus lumborum). This meant that exercise wasn’t so easy or healthy for me. I can’t explain exactly what I mean, but that it just didn’t feel good. It didn’t feel the same, and I just felt bad, wrong and exhausted. I didn’t understand at the time that they were doing stuff to my muscles by remote control. Merely that something was wrong with me. I can’t explain it accurately. Now the point to this paragraph is that the stuff they did to tighten up my back and neck and chest and stuff, as well as iliopsoas, meant that I was unable to enjoy or benefit from exercise so much. Or it greatly limited me in this regard. Which meant that even a 5 minute jog ended up feeling bad. Or a swim, pushups and bicep curls, and some situps. That is the problem! I certainly couldn’t manage to do something like lifting weights at the gym, or a Muay Thai class, both of which I would have loved to do back in my first year of university - and actively wanted to do.]

Sally: Okay, so exercise wasn’t working so great for you. It wasn’t going well. And you were still feeling unwell. You’ve been unwell since the Europe trip. And you never got back into exercise. Tell me about the rest of it.

Well, I still need to flesh it out a bit. I had been unwell in Europe and America. And then I came back to New Zealand, and I was still unwell. So I set about trying to return myself to health, and to get back into exercise. I also sought out advice and help from variety of people along the way. Here are some of the things I tried…

I went to the library back just before term started, and I borrowed some books about posture. Such as “posture makes perfect” by Vic Barker. I also borrowed a few books from the library about yoga, including Tibetan yoga. And one or two about breathing or relaxation. I have forgotten the titles of those books. I forget exactly when I first put that stuff into action.

So… when I went to university I tried to get back into exercise. I would have liked to have get into weight lifting at the gym. But it was obviously too much. I would also have liked to do maybe 6 months of Muay Thai (just the pad work and drills, mostly). But that wasn’t an option. So instead I went to a jiujitsu class and an aikido class (jiujitsu was Japanese Jiujitsu, but they’re just called it “Jitsu”. It wasn’t BJJ). Just to see I could ease back into it, and also ignore the symptoms. I tried just one class of each, but I couldn’t manage. It was too much. But that I mean that the after effects made it not worth it. Instead of feeling good afterwards, I felt bad! Next I tried going to a couple of yoga classes. I thought that yoga was supposed to be gentle and healthy and helpful. Nope. It made me feel worse. Really, much worse. I tried both a hatha class and an ashtanga class.

What else? Oh. I asked my father for advice. And he seemed to think that I wasn’t sick, and that it was all in my head, and that all I needed was a bit of exercise. He suggested that I try going for a swim, which I did. And then I felt worse. It really didn’t feel quite right swimming. It left me feeling quite fatigued. And it wasn’t normal, nice, ‘healthy’ fatigue like I used to get from exercise. Instead it was “yucky” fatigue. I also tried jogging, cycling and strength movements (as mentioned above). These all made me feel bad. And gave me post exertional malaise. I was a full time student at the time. I wasn’t working much. I did a few hours a couple of times at my father’s music shop in Kapiti, but I found that to be a bit taxing. It was while working at my father’s shop that he suggested that I merely needed exercise (he also suggested that I wasn’t sick, and was just “allergic” to Amanda!?).

As for being a full time student. I struggled to attend all of my classes and lectures, so I skipped many of them. And I didn’t have much of a social life. Because I was exhausted.

Sally: did you skip many classes?

David: Yes. It’s a funny story actually. I thought that I would be able to manage morning classes, and all of the classes that I needed to attend were available back-to-back in the morning, so I arranged the schedule so that I could get all of my lectures out of the way quickly. But then I rapidly found that I couldn’t manage. I switched to the evening streams (unofficially). But then I found fairly quickly that even those lectures were pretty taxing. And so I started shirking university attendance. I still did the work at home. What else did I do? I shirked as many tutorials as possibles. The quality of the tutorials wasn’t that great either. I was quite dedicated and systematic when it came to study (I studied hard), but I often skipped lectures. I forget how many I skipped.

David: What other symptoms did I experience??

Well first of all…

I had terrible digestion.

Terrible!

It was awful. I had very bad constipation. And I couldn’t do anything about it. It was like a plague on my life. It was very hard dry stool. There is a chart that you’re supposed to use as a diagnostic tool. It is called the Bristol stool chart. And on that chart it would be level one. And very often. I might discuss it more later. It’s actually a pretty important part of my story. No matter what I ate, it was often bad. I think that most of the digestive symptoms were caused by cell towers and stuff like that like. It was horrible. Just constant digestive troubles. Caused by direct action by the cell towers, that I think directly pulled moisture from my colon. There were other things they did electronically to cause the problems too. Both direct and indirect. I don’t fully understand the electromagnetic mechanisms, the radio wave mechanisms, and how they interacted with my nervous system and then my colon, but I do know that the symptoms were a problem. A massive one. I’d just be stuck on the toilet for ages, and trying and hoping for something. Again and again. And just a few pebbles. There are worse problems later though. To be covered later.

There were body temperature issues, problems with sweating and problems with “dry mouth”. They would sometimes make my body temperature extremely warm, and sometimes extremely cold. I am not sure how they did it. And so I would keep on having to warm up or cool down. And this was a real issue for me. And it was an issue that existed and persisted for years and years. And I would take off my sweatshirt and put on my sweatshirt again and again. My hoodie or jacket. And no matter what, I always needed to take my jacket off or put it on again and again. Always I was alternating between cold and warm. What else? I was freezing in some places I lived, or dangerously overheating (there was a ton of that stuff in Khandallah, but that’s a story for another day). Also, they would make me sweat profusely, for no known reason. Sometimes I would be freezing cold, and sweating profusely. Oh, and my mouth was dry. Just always. And I couldn’t eat. Especially in the morning. And my mouth would twist up with sour food. I had to drink water or something with every mouthful of food. I actually had to skip breakfast, and significant appetite issues. For years. Years. For years I had both dry mouth and appetite issues. As for “dry mouth”, I had a routine in the mornings, where had to drink tea, wait, eat an apple, and wait a while and then eat some “corn thins” or rice wafers with cheese on them. It was all I could manage? It’s silly!? I didn’t know that were messing with me.

They also used to give me a symptom where I got stupidly hungry. I called them hungry attacks. But that doesn’t come into play while at Raroa Road.

They did these attacks called “stress him”.. where they would tighten things like my neck, back, shoulders or chest. Or other muscles. But just make me feel grotty. Their label is “stress him”. But that is just a label. Labels like that don’t matter. The problem is that it messed with my muscles. It caused problems. In a variety of ways.

I also had brain fog. Quite a bit of it. And I felt bad a lot of the time. Just a lot of feeling grotty.

Sally: that is shocking! That is a ton of symptoms. Did you not know that it was the computers, and cell towers!?

David: no. I had no idea. I didn’t know about the computerised cell towers that could hurt you until 2024 (only heard of the fae in 2022).

Sally: so what did you do to try to regain and rebuild your health? Or to figure out what was wrong?

David: Now, what else did I do to get my health back. I visited doctors. Oh wait, haha. I also went to get basic multivitamins and supplements from a health food store. I tried a multivitamin for a while (I even bought the most expensive one that they had, upon the suggestion of the shop assistant there). The multivitamin made no difference. And I tried spirulina (which does nothing). Supplements don’t do much.

Now back to the main narrative… I visited some doctors.

I visited a doctor. I told her that I was feeling sick, and I told her my story. I would have told her that the previous year I had been healthy, and that I had become sick while on holiday in Europe and hadn’t recovered. I would have explained that to her. And talked all about my symptoms. I would have told her that I was exhausted and suffering from high levels of persistent fatigue. I would have told her that I didn’t sleep well at all and suffered from constant sleep disturbance, and that I couldn’t exercise, because when I did, the following day I would feel like I was “hit by a bus”. And I would have told her that I was suffering from severe constipation, and explained that symptom in detail. And also that I had tried to re-establish patterns and habits of exercise. But she was a very bad doctor. She ordered lots of blood tests. Which all came back normal. She ordered blood tests for me on two occasions. We tested everything. When we got the blood tests back, she said that the tests were clear and nothing was wrongly test results. Everything came back normal. She lied to me though, and misled me very badly. She said that my symptoms didn’t count as constipation, because even though it was very hard dry stool, that at least a few pebbles came out in 72 hours, therefore it isn’t constipation (it was constipation. She was just playing “silly buggers” when it came to definitions of constipation). I said to her, what if is chronic fatigue syndrome? But she said that I shouldn’t worry about it, because chronic fatigue syndrome is a “self limiting problem”. I was still worried about it. I had heard that it was bad and never went away. And she ordered blood tests for me, lots of them, instead of simply helping me. She didn’t even have to test anything. She could have just told me. And she said that if it is chronic fatigue syndrome, that just to “start low, go slow” when it came to exercise. Which isn’t helpful! I couldn’t exercise at all!

I went to the University clinic. And I did this even though I didn’t think that the university clinic was the best one in town. But it was free. In hindsight, I would go to a proper doctor, and probably a male one. One that I pay for. Or possibly a clinic run by Christians.

I saw that doctor twice. I have forgotten her name, but she was an Indian woman.

I asked my dad for advice. And he suggested that I was suffering from depression. And/or that it was all in my head. And suggested things like “all you need is a good run” or “you just need a swim”.

I did not ask my mother for advice. I was hardly talking to her. Because she had hurt my health by not letting me rest. I was very, very upset with hers and so I didn’t talk to her. I later forgave her for what she did, and told her. But she made a big song and dance about how dare I forgive her for letting me travel around Europe with her. In hindsight… she had known how sick I was, and that I really, really needed rest. But she damaged and hurt me anyway! And then she has a go at me for forgiving her, to try to restore the relationship. It boggles the mind!! At the time I thought that she merely disregarded my health problems because sending care or diet believe me, and that was enough for me to not be on speaking terms. But it turns out that she caused the health problems, and ignored me when I said that I was unwell.

Amanda vaguely said a few things about antidepressants not being that bad, and being like a light at the end of the tunnel. But then dropped it. And was “supportive” and nice, acting like she believed that I was unwell (I thought that it might have been glandular fever from which I never fully recovered? I didn’t know much about medicine or disease at the time).

What else? I went to counselling. Here is how that happened… I had been getting advice from other people, one of them being my father. And he seemed to think that my health issues were psychosomatic, or perhaps “just depression”. I disagreed, but he seemed to think that they were depression. He believed (or otherwise suggested) that depression can cause physical symptoms, including fatigue and the sort of symptoms that I was experiencing. But I wasn’t experiencing the symptom of “persistent sadness” that was spoke of in diagnostic manuals for depression, so I couldn’t see how it would be “depression”. If you’re exhausted, but don’t feel sad all the time, are you depressed? I don’t think so. But anyway, I went to counselling anyway. I did it just in case it helped somehow, and because it made sense to me at the time. Not really, but why not. I did it mostly to humour my father, and also to “check that box”. So I went and talked to a counsellor. Actually three of them at university, they were funded after all! I got bounced around a bit, and it came to nothing. In hindsight, it is because no one speaks plainly. Counselling was a bit of a bust. It’s sad, because to have specialists who listen to you talk about your problems, and then explain things in full to you plainly, that would be very useful. But they couldn’t do anything to solve my problems, or my health. It wasn’t very useful. They could have told me that my health problems and symptoms were caused by cell towers and interference with my nervous system. That was the advice and “good counsel” I needed. I was pretty unwell, and getting worse. It was ruining my life.

I thought I would try anti depressants, just in case, and also to check it off the list, kind of just to humour them. This is not a good reason to do things!! And so I tried taking fluoxetine (Prozac). The doctor prescribed it. It wasn’t good for me. It’s actually really bad for people. I took it for just a couple of days, and it was horrible. I straight away wanted to kill myself. It was horrible. I was miserable. Talking about psychiatric symptoms is weird, and doesn’t come across well, but I’ll do it. I felt a very strong desire to kill myself. It was a very strong desire. It didn’t make sense to me. But I felt a very strong desire to do so. And in particular I remember an incident where I was walking along Salamanca Street in Wellington, and felt a strong desire to throw myself into traffic. Which isn’t normal for me! I also felt a symptom/feeling of generalised rage. And my hair smelt funny. I had weird smelling sweat, and it got into my hair. And so, I didn’t like feeling like this! And so I quit taking the drugs.

I was no closer to figuring out what was wrong with me.

Later on, while at university, I went to a physiotherapist. But I think that was in my second year. They weren’t much help.

Sally: Okay, so you were unwell, and you had all sorts of symptoms. And you had tried to rehabilitate your health through exercise and rest. You had tried seeing doctors and counsellors. You had had a lot of blood tests, that got you nowhere. You were sick! And you tried anti depressants, which were very bad.

David: Yes.

What else. In spite of being unwell, the were still things that I did. Ummm, I went out to student bars a couple of times with Amanda because she wanted to dance. I also wanted to experience a bit of normal student life, even though I was unwell. We took Rachel once. And Jess Mackenzie once. We went out twice, maybe three times. And that about it. Amanda wanted to go out clubbing. Ummm. It wasn’t very exciting, and I was exhausted anyway? I felt tired during those evenings. And I felt tired the day after. I was religious, but there was no prohibition on mild-to-moderate alcohol consumption. I wasn’t supposed to drink heavily, and drunkenness was discouraged in the things that I read.

What else, I used to commute on the weekends. Like I would go back to Kapiti in the weekends. To spend time with Amanda. I missed her.

I learned to play guitar. Which was fun. I didn’t have a very high quality guitar and I wasn’t allowed to play loudly (we were in the same building as a childcare centre). I learned to play okay on my guitar. At that point I was still a better pianist than guitarist, but I was improving. I fooled around with the action and intonation of my guitar to make it sound better. But I probably just needed a better guitar. All the same, I worked on fundamentals (while playing quietly on my amp), so that I would eventually become decent either way. The new guitar could wait. I worked fairly hard at learning to play guitar, and I was starting to get pretty decent. I kept improving at guitar over the next year or so. I did really need slightly better equipment, and a place where I could play a little more loudly.

And then we got married. We got married at the registry office. Because you’re not supposed to “move in” together before you get married. And also we were going to live with my Nana who was living in Karori, and she was a very conservative and devout Christian (or so I thought). And so I guess we got married. We got married. We just got it out of the way so that we could live together. It’s a Christian thing.

And then we moved to Hathaway Avenue. It was my Nana’s home.

David: Do you think that we might come back to the rest of this tomorrow? It is a long story, after all?

Sally: You were right, it is a long story. I would be happy to come back to it tomorrow.

David: Yes, I think that suits me.

***

David: and we’re back.

Sally: let’s keep going

And then off to Hathaway Avenue..

A couple of weeks later we moved into Hathaway Avenue. This is my Nana’s house. It was the best place I could think of to rent an affordable place in Wellington. Although, in hindsight, we have just found a place in a flat in Wellington. Flatting would have been much better. I don’t know why I didn’t do that. But at the age, I still counted in family. And trusted family. Which is actually sad. My family was pretty much good for nothing.

Anyway. So we moved into Karori, and rented a room (and a half) from my Nana.

Sally: Could you tell me about his house you were staying in. And what your life was like while you were living there.

David: Yes, of course I can. It was my Nana’s home. And it was a horrible and very hard period of my life.

David: It was the home where my Nana had lived for as long as I could remember. I used to go there for holidays and for visits while growing up. It is a place that used to feel like home. I was very used to my Nana, and she had always been close with my father, and also when I was in my teens used to visit us fairly often. And stay with us also. I loved my Nana. IThe house itself was down the side of a hill. And it was just up from a stream. It had four bedrooms, a kitchen dining room and a lounge. It was a little bit… rundown? Dated? And it was cold and damp. Probably because it didn’t get much sun, it was beside a stream, and down the side of a hill. But as I said, I had used to spend holidays with her at her home. I used to chill out there reading books, playing with her Lego, playing with her cats, playing with the neighbour’s kids (I had a massive crush on a girl who lived there). I had fond memories of her serving me breakfast there. She had a favourite way of serving breakfast, where we had Weetbix covered with a sprinkling of sweeter (more expensive) cereal like nutrigrain, followed by toast with peanut butter and Vegemite, cut into little squares .What else? We were in a spot surrounded with hills and staircases. Like, there was a staircase to get up to the street, and a bit of a walk to the bus stop. Which is important, because things like ordinary stairs or hills had become a difficult thing for me.

David: So Amanda and I moved there. And I was as sick as a dog. I felt unwell. They kept doing electronic things to me. And I got sicker and sicker. Similar symptoms, but more tightness in my neck and back. And worse sleep. We were together, which was nice. But I was unwell!

She was weird though. We had conflict. I thought it was just the sort of fights you might have right after getting married. But she was a new Christian. So I thought that may have been it. As it actually happens to be, she was just a bad egg all along. Okay: so I was a Christian, and I almost always assumed good intentions on the part of other people, by default. I was golden rule oriented. And so when we fought and argued, I assumed that she was a good faith actor. Which might seem bizarre or naive. But I should mention that she came from a bad family, and a bad environment growing up. So I made allowances for that.

I had read a book about marriage (lent or given to us by the Cottons, who had done Amanda’s pre-baptism course). I think that was “The Marriage Book” by Nicky and Sila Lee. And from that I was led to believe that it isn’t uncommon for there to be conflict early on in marriage. But anyway, I had university to attend! And material to learn, and tests to take. And so life goes on.

Sally: Were you very unwell while you were there?

David: Yes, I was very unwell. I even looked unwell. I would be quite happy to post pictures of myself too. I look unwell in those picture. My shoulders are all bunched up too. I look awful. What else…

I played natural selection. I played the piano and guitar. I had fiber optic internet hooked up to the house. Amanda and I studied together. I was teaching myself to play stairway to heaven. Or trying to! I was teaching myself to play moonlight sonata on the piano. But I struggled to focus while doing these. Especially playing the piano. But I couldn’t understand why! Please note: yes, I did learn to play guitar and I did practise the piano. I did make progress, it is just that it was hampered a bit. Amanda and I were planning out our wedding ceremony thing (we had decided to do the registry office thing, but still have a wedding for guests and stuff later, because why not).

I was really unwell. I couldn’t sleep well at all. I just plain couldn’t sleep. It was horrible. I didn’t have a decent night sleep at all. I was exhausted, my digestion was awful and my neck and back felt bad. Also had some other symptoms. I was cold a lot of the time, and lost weight, and I counter seem to get warm and stay warm.

They tightened my back up long term here, I think. And I couldn’t sleep properly because of this. And my shoulders were wrong. I will put a picture up. And I had skin issues, and exhaustion. Incredible exhaustion. So I just played video games. I wasn’t very sociable.

My digestion was horrible.

I came to believe that I was gluten intolerant. It was suggested to me by Amanda that this was the case. Or her mother, I forget which. I tried it out, and it seemed tin make a difference. But perhaps some of the symptoms were caused by cell towers. Or maybe lots of the symptoms were related to cell towers, and so when I tested gluten intolerance, I thought it made sense?? I think they lied to me: I eat gluten containing grains, and then I get symptoms, and then I assume the symptoms are caused by the food. It’s a scientific test. But actually, it was subverted by messing with the testing instrumentation. That is, my body.

And then I finished university for the year, with straight A’s. Just fast forward. My marks were good.

Insert picture here.

Now as for exercise, I tried to get back into it and failed. Again. I just wasn’t well. But I tried. What did I try? I tried doing yoga from a book, even though I had already tried two yoga classes in the past. I printed out a bunch of “achievable” poses. But they didn’t work for me. I think that it was the tightening in my back/torso that did it. It just felt bad afterwards, and the exercises didn’t help. I also had “post exertional malaise” afterwards. tried doing breathing exercises from yoga as well. I did sone stuff from a book called “posture makes perfect” by vic barker. And some other stuff. I tried going for walks up to the top of the hill behind the house and back. But I was extremely tired all the time. Everything made me feel awful, and I kept on getting post exertional malaise (I felt like I had been “hit by a bus” after exercise). I actually felt very unwell here. It was an extremely horrible time in my life. I lost weight. Somehow, I think that my memories didn’t fully form during that period of time.

And then the next challenge after that was to… make ends meet. It was holidays and my student allowance paused over the summer. If I had been healthy, I would have loved to have worked full time. And I could have saved up some money. But I couldn’t work full time. I was too unwell.

I got a job cleaning houses. At first I tried took fast food. I did one afternoon, and fae home and went splat on the bed. The previous year I had been able to handle things like boxing, running, jump rope, pushups, sit-ups, weightlifting and anything I wanted. But now I couldn’t even manage a few hours working at Burger King. Anyway, it was just a trial. Fast food wasn’t for me.

I then used student job search to find some cleaning jobs, and pieced together enough income. But cleaning houses was _brutal_. It was actually quite hard. It was exhausting. We had money. But I was exhausted. And so anyway, I pushed through. And it wore away at me. It took its toll. I was too much of an Ayn Rand fanboy to just get welfare. I probably should have just gone on welfare. I was even losing weight. I think that this period of time caused significant long term harm. At the same time, we were planning our wedding and honeymoon. And one more thing, I kept getting hit by cold rays. Or at least I think that I did. Or maybe the house was just extremely cold.

And then it was time for our wedding. We got married on the 19th of January 2008. We did so at the waterfront cafe and kitchen. Well actually, we did so on the beach just across the stream from the bar and cafe. There is a little bridge. I think that it might still be there. And so we got married! Which is insane. But that’s life. Mike Hocking officiated. We had about 60 guests. We had a paid photographer and catering. Amanda’s Aunty Megan made a Chocolate Wedding cake. Someone contributed a bar tab. The whole day went pretty smoothly.

And then we went on a honeymoon to Australia. We went to Surfer’s Paradise, in the Gold Coast. It was very hot. I’ve been to Surfer’s Paradise before. I’d have been just as happy to have gone somewhere in NZ, but Simon and Terry paid for us to go to Australia (Amanda’s Uncle and his partner Terry, now wife). While we were over there, we were both a little unwell, especially Amanda (I think that she was faking being ill though). This meant that we couldn’t do some of the stuff that we wanted to do. Like go to amusements parks (such as Dreamworld, Movieland, Dreamworld, Australia Zoo, Wet and Wild or Seaworld. We did some fun things though, like look around shops and go to a few tourist things like a mirror maze. I wasn’t really well enough to enjoy any of those places, but I could possibly have coped with going to Australia Zoo, or walking around movie world. By coped, I mean push myself to get through the day. Sometimes I just pushed myself to get things done, even though I was feeing unwell. But Amanda was unwell too (she said that she had sinus issues) and some couldn’t do anything much. Truth be told, I have forgotten much of it. And as I write this, my mind feels a little bit blah.

And so we got back from our honeymoon, arriving back in New Zealand. We were still student living at my Nana’s house. And we felt that we needed a better place to live, and neither Amanda or I liked Karori very much. The place we stayed at in Karori was cold, damp, isolated and far from everything (it was also very lonely). And I had been quite unwell there! And Amanda’s Aunty offered us a place to stay in Mount Cook. And so we took it. And then we moved into an apartment in Mount Cook, Wellington. Hansen street. A studio apartment.

It was a one bedroom apartment on Hansen Street. It was right across from a bunch of student apartments (the Drummond Street Apartment Complex). It was a stone throw away from the Adelaide Pub. It was reasonably nice inside the apartment. It was clean and tidy, and fairly new/modern. It looked nice, and Amanda’s Aunty Megan didn’t need it. She had decided to move into another part of town to flat, because she claimed to be experiencing “mortgage stress”. Whatever that means? In hindsight, probably she felt that the apartment was a lemon, a dud. And just wanted to live elsewhere. But anyway, she rented it to us. And also, I think that living there was supposed to be unpleasant for me? I’m not sure.

But anyway, we moved in… it turns out that it’s extremely noisy!! There were very loud, very annoying road works planned for Adelaide Road, late at night. There was construction to both the left and right of us, that started early-ish in the morning. And the Adelaide Bar was extremely noisy on Friday and Saturday night. And our neighbours across the hallway were noisy too, and liked slamming the door and yelling “goodbye” very loudly at night. Constantly. I think they were Chinese. And the door dampener didn’t work, for the door to the staircase. And we were right beside the stairwell. It was noisy. And not that nice living there. And there was no double glazing. And the garage door was noisy, for the basement garage. And the student accomodation across the lane was noisy. The only thing to do with an apartment like that is move out. It was horrible.

It was my year (or more like 8 months) of no sleep. It was horrible. It was very bad for me. But it wasn’t just sleep and noise. It was…. Other symptoms from cell towers. They tightened up my back (aka torso) in nasty ways. And then I couldn’t sleep so well. And also Amanda deliberately tosses and turned to wake me up! And I just couldn’t sleep much! I don’t realise she did it on purpose. And she stole blankets. Furthermore, I got hit by symptoms that fried me a bit. From the cell towers. I was really unhappy with it. I want sure what cause it. I started to think there was something like mould, spores of chemicals making me sick in the apartment. The previous house, Hathaway Avenue, I thought that mould there had harmed me. I even threw stuff away just in case it was chemical or mould!??

Soooooo. What did I try to fix my health? Well, I tried an allergy test (came back more or less negative, no major allergies). And I did a few sessions of the Alexander Technique. Strangely enough, the Alexander technique relieved by symptoms very, very powerfully. Why did it remove my symptoms so effectively? Perhaps it was because my symptoms included the tightening of my back (aka torso) using my remote control weapons (neck, iliopsoas, chest, shoulders and upper back). And when I went to the Alexander technique lessons, it greatly relieved the tension. And did so very swiftly. This is because they turned off the machines. They had to. That is how it worked. Also, the Alexander technique works to relieve tension in things like the neck. It’s a weird type of body work, sort of. It is a type of training. It’s very powerful, but I think it can be used in really, really nasty ways. It is similar to qigong or Wi style tai chi.

Let us discuss the good points of the apartment, and so on… The good side is that it was warm. It was warm and comfortable. It was bright and airy. The kitchen was perfectly adequate, and the shower worked well and it had warm water. It wasn’t too far to bus stops. It had a balcony. Downsides, the blinds broke and weren’t fixed. The tapware broke.

And I worked a bit. I cleaned houses and offices, I cut down on it a bit over time, until I stopped. I found a bit of work tutoring a high school student (Ambika Saha). And I had some work for my lecturer Martin Turner. He wanted someone to prepare spreadsheets for him to use as a resource for/with his students. I had to take a bunch of balance sheets from various companies listed on the NZ or Australian stock Exchanges, and input numbers from them into a spreadsheet, to be used as a sample for his students in his financial statement analysis classes. He taught “fundamental analysis”. See also: Graham and Dodd. He had a big file of them. I also worked as a tea attendant. Where I made tea in the afternoons at the university. I was exhausted all the time. They kept on doing stuff to me electronically. It was a horrible period of time in my life. But I just pushed through.

I studied hard, and did well.

And then talk about my health in 2008. Talk about health.

The apartment was a place where I got hit with a lot of symptoms, and suffered from a lot of sleep deprivation. Some sleep deprivation due to electronic means direct on nervous system, some due to noise. Some due to Amanda hogging the blankets. But they actually did a lot to me by remote control nervous system attacks.

What else?

I played computer games. I played guitar. I got better at guitar. And I tried to get my friendship with Ben Jack going again, but it floundered. I was too tired to be sociable. I spent some time reading. Things kept on carrying on. The fact that I spent weekends in Kapiti meant that I didn’t socialise enough. I had lost weight. I still saw my family a bit. I was on speaking terms with my family. I was losing weight and getting weaker! Which was horrible to me. Absolutely horrible.

I enjoyed my studies at university. They were actually quite interesting. I learned a lot. I did some financial accounting, management accounting, corporate finance, tax accounting, audit, management studies and a few other things. And I did both my readings and Amanda’s. I was getting back into reading. I always enjoy learning new things.

I also had to review a lot of material from sixth and seventh form before I could tutor Ambika. She was a really easy student to teach by the way. She practically taught herself. Although perhaps I actually did a good job and was helpful. She was a student at Queen Margaret’s college, which is the best girls school in Wellington. She ended up being top of a few subjects in her final year (top of economics, top of English, top of accounting and the “scholar award”). Next, this is an awkward topic, but she was a lovely young woman and a good student and I didn’t have a crush on her. It wasn’t even on my radar. I saw her only as a student.

Anyway, it was a hell with no sleep. That was the Hansen Street apartment in Mt. Cook.

We had issues with someone moving our car (Elmo). We kept on finding that the car had been moved. And then we would have to hunt it down. You see, we didn’t have a parking space in the garage. Or probably we did, but didn’t know and weren’t told that we had one signed. So we had to get on street parking (you need a special council pass to park in that area, which we bought). And so we parked on the street. But then someone lit our car on fire. Sorry, that was sudden. There was an arson attack on our car, and someone set it on fire. And the whole thing was ashes. It was really annoying. We relied on that car quit a bit. And so we were carless.

We were not enjoying living in Mt Cook. It was horrible, and so noisy. And we were spending weekends in Kapiti anyway. We spent the weekends at Amanda’s mother’s house or grandparent’s house. In the end we were leaning towards moving home to Kapiti. On the whole, I hadn’t enjoyed Wellington very much. And my health had become much, much worse.

We spent the weekends in Kapiti. With Amanda’s family. They treated me like a part of their family. Or so I felt.

It was kind of sad, my university experience. I just couldn’t enjoy the things that I wanted to enjoy. Or do the things I wanted to do. I was too tired. I was exhausted and unwell. Like joining clubs, socialising, working more hours, and having more fun. There were tons of things I wish I could do.

***

We moved back to Kapiti halfway through the second trimester in 2008. We kept going to university, as usual and as expected. But now we were commuting. She commuted as far as the Kelburn campus, but I commuted only as far as the Pipitea Campus. We both studied fairly hard. Well, Amanda studied hardish. And then after maybe 3-4 months, we had our end of trimester exams, and finished university for the year. I got good marks, and Amanda passed her papers fairly comfortably. But we’re back in Kapiti, which was nice. Kapiti feels a lot more like home. I suppose I should tell you more about the Kapiti Coast sometime, but perhaps I will do that in the notes. The house in Kapiti was quite cold. We had to use the fire place quite a bit. I never could quite figure out why that place was so cold. But it felt more like home. And once the fireplace was going, it was fine. I was also able to spend time with friends and family there. Or so I thought. The funny thing is that I moved back to Kapiti just as my father moved away from Kapiti. His music shop failed, he got married to a Vivian, and moved to Lower Hutt, and moved to a spot up in the hills, largely inaccessible other than by car trip. So even though I moved back to Paraparaumu, my father had moved out of town. I missed my father. One of the good things though is that we were able to start spending time with friends from high school and church. And so we started spending time with people like Jesse Orchard, Aaron Oldcorn, Nathan Thatcher, John Cosgrove, Lauren Cosgrove, Ashley King. And their families too, a little bit. Including the Orchards, who had been part of my life since the age of 15. We were also able to resume regular church attendance. I was going to church at the CCC. I think Amanda petered out of church attendance sometime not too far down the track.

While living in Kapiti, I visited a few doctors at the University medical clinic at the Pipitea Campus. I saw a male and a woman. The male was white, and the woman was Chinese. I told them about my health problems. But they were useless.

What else? I tried to revive a habit of having a shared lunch after church. Here is how it is, we used to have this thing called “youth lunch”, for the youth group. And so I revived it. But it was youth lunch, but without us being youth any more. Uhh. It sounded better when I proposed it. But basically after church we all went to the shops to get something to share/eat, and then met up at someone’s house afterwards. And after lunch we possibly played cards, board games or video games (for example, Bang!, Catan or Guitar Hero).

And then I needed to plan out the following year at university. But I wasn’t sure if I could manage. So I tried to see if I could get an appropriate diagnosis, so that I could study part time and still attend university. And so I did. I went to doctor Amanda Clarke at KYS. Or perhaps it was doctor susie poon at the VUE medical centre. I think that it was the latter. And I got a medical certificate recommending that I be able to study part time while still receiving the student allowance. Once I had this, I planned out my next year. The plan was to study part time. Actually, it was to study just under part time. In think it was five papers instead of six. But maybe they were easier papers? I don’t know. It was a less tough year. But I also had a part time job tutoring at the University. I had two classes of accounting students, which meant that I was getting relatively good money for non physical work, AND I got paid for time spent on preparation and marking. No more cleaning jobs!!

What next. I had the whole year planned out, and things were looking bright. I wasn’t 100% well, but I felt much better. And I felt pretty positive.

And then I went to a birthday party. I got something like the flu, and took a couple of days off. And then someone blasted me with radio waves and electro magnetic attacks to make my illness worse!! I didn’t know that it was electronic. I just got damaged heaps by it. And then I was sick and dropped out of university (I got a full refund). So I got the flu, but someone leveraged that and used it as an excuse to blast me. And then I got sick. And thoroughly so. And so I quit university. I dropped out. I had already been unwell for ages. Perhaps I should have stayed enrolled, and pushed through, and adopted an attitude of “C’s get degrees”. And skipped my classes, and coasted. And just missed the first couple of months of university. But I thought that I was better off dropping out. But also that I could take a full year to fully recover, and then go back the next year. Don’t forget, but at that time I had been unwell for two year, without any real understand as to why.

What else did I do?

Because I was now no longer a student at Victoria University, I switched from being a patient registered with the medial clinic in Wellington to being a patient at KYS (Kapiti Youth Support). I saw Dr Amanda Clarke, and relied on her. I went on a bit of a long term mission to figure out what was wrong with me. And we did a bunch of tests and checked up on everything. I knew I was unwell, and I knew that was sick. But I didn’t know what caused it.

I thought that I might need to rely on a doctor’s clinic back home in Paraparaumu rather than the doctor’s clinic in town.

And I also was still tutoring. I kept that job. Because it was just one trip into town per week, and two one hour sessions talking to students. I could do it even with very low energy levels.

During the year of 2009, I tried to recover. But my health was very bad. Things went nowhere fast. I struggled with the cold and with my weight. I socialised a bit, particularly through church and lunch afterwards. But my social life was pretty sparse. It was actually starting to become a problem.

Addendum:

In which I drop out of university for the second time.

One year passed, and I didn’t really recover. We are now in 2010And then in the summer I improved. I had some Alexander technique lessons/sessions with a woman in Paekākāriki. And that relieved symptoms quite a bit. I also went to some religious meetings where you’re supposed to receive “miraculous healing”. I didn’t believe in that being likely to happen, but I thought I would give it a shot (David Orchard, Jesse’s older brother, and Geoff Orchard’s oldest son had previously had “chronic fatigue syndrome” and then been miraculously healed at a healing meeting in Auckland.) I tried to “have faith”.

And then I went back to university. And hoped for the best. And then I wasn’t very well, and symptoms returned. And I wasn’t that well to begin with. I thought that I was healthy enough, and only just healthy enough, and then the symptoms returned. And so I dropped out. I quit after six weeks, because I had paid a lot of money for university, and I wanted to recoup my losses, and the sooner you do that the better. And I didn’t know what was wrong with me. It’s horrible living like that. I had dropped out again. It sucked. I had no path forward.

A whole ton of visits to doctors occurred throughout 2009 and 2010. I want to write about that later. But that belongs in parts five and six. These cover 2009 and 2010.

#####

Notes:

1. Christianity and Amanda and marriage: she had a troubled past, involving molestation by a step father, her father and mother being alcoholics, her father exposing her to drug use, and also self harm on her part. There was also self harm. She became a Christian in high school, at the behest of her Nana Kath. She came along to church with us. She was baptised. She did a pre baptism course with the Cotton family, a respected family at our church. She was baptised by Stan Rolston. We volunteered with the youth group a bit. Jesse orchard was a mutual friend. All of these people know that I was unwell. And getting worse. Nathan was also a church friend, along with John and Lauren Cosgrove. She and I had been friends since we were 15.

2. Things I tried, like spirulina and supplements.

3. David was mega 110% religious

4. Alexander technique

5. Grades

6. Visiting Kapiti in the weekends: expand on this, being a part of Amanda’s family

7. Kapiti Coast, or Paraparaumu, and the lay of the land in general

8. The orchard family

9. Do a tiny map of Paraparaumu/Kapiti

It will take either two days to write uninterrupted, or two weeks with interruption. Note from Friday 24th April.

Notes for parts five and six: the visit to the elders to be prayed for in mid 2010. And all of the doctor’s visits. Also, add in the visit to the male doctor in 2008 and the Chinese woman doctor as well. Susie Poon.

Note from 30th: I might take a couple day off from writing, and then tidy it up in Sunday/Monday. And then post it properly.

It will take until about 2010 or parts five and six, until you _really_ get a feeling for, and understanding for the shape of the story.

****

WIP of rewrite: ignore, just here in case. I have adjusted stuff up until doctors visit. And also edited out a few things in the later sections. Just near the end of the story.

Life story part three and four

David: And so I went off to university. I actually don’t know where to start. This is part three, and maybe part four of my life story. Where shall we start?

David: Okay then, let’s get on with it.

Sally: Why did you choose accounting and finance?

On the other hand, I also wanted to be an entrepreneur/inventor. I kind of had the feeling that I ought be able to do that anyway. And also learn to do computer programming and game design as well. And do these things on my own time and in my own way. I used to say that I just wanted the piece of paper, and that I could then learn or do whatever I wanted. I was extremely confident in my abilities to learn things, make money and to be an “ideas guy”. Whether the ideas be in finance, inventiveness, video games or whatever else. But all the same while I was at university, I devoted myself, truly devoted myself to learning the stuff. I *talked* about university being all about getting “just a piece of paper”, but I actually studied and got good marks. And I did wide reading around the topics that I studied. I really wanted to learn a lot, and I was surprised by how much good stuff there is to learn at a university. I love learning and improving my mind. Furthermore, I was a firm believer in the idea that you should never let your schooling get in the way of your education, so I was always learning everything I could in every possible way, especially from books. I loved reading, and still do. And then of course I said that you need the option of getting a good day job, and accounting is good anywhere in the world, so why not do accounting?

Anyway, so I ended up at Victoria University studying Accounting and Finance as part of a business degree.

Note: I also thought that social entrepreneurship seemed appealing to me.

Note 2: I felt that I was smart enough to get things done and create good products and inventions, or otherwise to successfully make money. Or perhaps to solve problems for other people. And I thought I could do it no matter what degree I had. But I didn’t count on health problems or energy issues.

***

I got back from my trip to Europe early in 2007, and went to stay at Amanda’s mother’s home at 5 Weka Road. It became my home. I was sick from my overseas trip. I had been hit by a lot of things on that trip. And I was obviously sick and unwell when I arrived at Weka Road, and I remained unwell. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get enough sleep, and I was always exhausted. I just had bone crushing exhaustion and awful fatigue, all the time. I would sleep until 12 or 1 pm, have broken sleep, and be exhausted anyway. I also had the weirdest symptoms of things like dry mouth, and was always extremely thirsty, my mind was shot, and foggy. And I just felt horrible in a generalised way.

I will tell you more about 5 Weka Road. It was a four bedroom house in Raumati Beach, Paraparaumu. It is about 3-4 minutes away from the shops, and about 4-5 minutes away from the beach itself. It is about 5-6 minutes walk away from where Amanda and I Iater got married and had our reception. It was a comfortable house, and fairly spacious too, with lots of natural light, and a lot of windows and ranch sliders, especially in the lounge/dining area. It had a very warm and comfortable conservatory, which I spent a fair bit of time in back then. And it had plum trees up back behind the house, on an embankment shored up by a retaining wall. The beach and waterfront near Raumati Village is very nice. We were right beside a sandy beach there. And Paraparaumu itself is sunny and warm, especially in summer (it can be a bit windy is the only issue, but it’s very nice in summer, and the wind is much worse in Wellington). Amanda had lived in Raumati Beach for years. Shane and Lesley owned the house jointly iirc. It was a nice, comfortable house, if perhaps a little cold and sometimes a little damp (especially the front room, which was just a converted garage). The property also had drainage issues, and tended to get waterlogged (the front garden/lawn would sometimes flood and stay flooded for days on end). They had four cats and one dog. I liked that place.

And so I stayed there for some weeks. It was a few weeks before University started, and then a few weeks commuting to university before I moved to my Grandfather’s house in Wellington (We called him Papa by the way, not grandpa or grandfather. From now on I will refer to him as Papa. He was my paternal grandfather, aka my father’s father). I didn’t enjoy commuting into Wellington from Kapiti. It was gruelling and I was exhausted. Why was it so tiring? I was tired because I was already tired, exhausted and unwell from my overseas trip, and because I never recovered from it. And because they kept on using these electromagnetic weapons on my body to harm me, and to cause me to directly experience fatigue. But still, all the same, I enjoyed some aspects of the experience of starting at university. I enjoyed borrowing books from the library, and going to my lectures, and buying my textbooks and course notes and readings. I really was very excited to be going to university, which sounds a bit geeky, but I thought that I would like it. There were so many things to do and to join. Which is one of the reasons that it was so disappointing, because I was too sick to do the things I really wanted to, to join clubs, try sports, meet people, make friends, network very well, join the gym, and all of the other cool things you can do at university. So I had a few or several weeks in Kapiti (perhaps five weeks, I cannot recall). And then I moved into Wellington.

Sally: How was your relationship with your parents back then?

David: Oh, okay. We will cover that briefly, and then get back to the main conversation. I wasn’t speaking to my mother (she had been horrible to me! I was so unwell! I never bounced back from that trip!). We reconciled later that year. Things between my father and I were a little bit strained, because he never offered any support to me when it came to the overseas trip where I became unwell (or even acknowledged that I was unwell). He plainly blanked me on that trip when I told him that I was unwell. Amanda and I had got engaged the previous year, which also caused a little bit of a problem, but strangely he hadn’t kicked up much of a fuss at the time! He didn’t love the idea. But I didn’t think it was that bad. At that point in my life, I didn’t understand people like my father. I’m a fairly honest and direct person. And he isn’t (note: they attacked my physically, again and again with electronic weapons, instead of engaging in plain, honest and direct speech. And I just can’t understand people like him).

[rework the above paragraph].

My father and I talked together about my finding a better place to stay in town, and we settled on Papa’s house. He lived there with his second wife Eva and his two youngest children Marton and Andras. Papa was originally from Hungary, from which he fled in 1956, along with his Mother, Father and sister.

All (Takeo, Murray, Sophia and Jimmy): Hi David, we don’t mind that Sally is doing the interviewing. She is doing a perfectly good job so far.

Sally: Yes please? Tell me more about your Papa’s house.

David: Okay, it was a massive house that spread out over three floors and was built into the side of a hill. And it was right beside Kelburn tunnel. They had a childcare centre on the bottom floor, and on half of the middle floor. And on the other half of the middle floor they had a guest room (with bathroom) and the study. And a huge, absolutely enormous amount of mess. The whole study area and adjoining room was full of junk and miscellaneous stuff (like hoarded stuff). My room was on the middle floor. The room I lived in was the same room that my father had lived in as teenager, while he was in his late teens. And perhaps even once he had finished school and was training to be a youth pastor. Or maybe that came later. He was massively religious before he turned bad. The top floor contained the dining room, lounge, kitchen and most of the bedrooms. The family all slept upstairs. The house was old, and a little musty. But very warm. Unlike most New Zealand houses, it was thoroughly warmed and properly heated. It had a gas furnace under the stairs that pumped out lots of warm air all day long, and it wafted up through the flight of stairs between the top and middle floor. I never knew the heater to be switched off. It was warm all the time. It was never cold in that house. I guess in summer it must have been off sometimes.

I grew up visiting that house sometimes. It was one of my three grandparents homes in that town (Wellington). That is, I had three sets of grandparents living in town. I also grew up spending time with Marton and Andras. That is, as a child we spent plenty of time together. The visited us in Taupo, we visited them in Wellington. And Andras used to come to Kapiti to play Halo 2 with us. They were family. And so when my father acts like I was a “runaway”, I was actually in Wellington living at his father’s house. Marton and Andras were Papa’s second set of kids. Technically they were my half uncles, but really they were more like cousins to me. They were younger than me. We used to play together in the childcare centre downstairs sometimes, with the toys and in the playground after the youngsters had left (they had an enormous supply of wooden bricks down there). They had a very nice cherry tree beside the walkway to the door. We sometimes played with the neighbouring kids growing up there. Matthew and I sometimes stayed there for a few days. It was a part of our childhood being there. What I am saying is that we spent time with these people (later in life: Papa was falsely accused of being a bad person and a pedophile, but I don’t think he was. There was a court case. I think it was a hit job, a take down, and then he got medicated. I think it gave him dementia. Perhaps anti psychotics. Some sort of foul play occurred).

I played a lot of games while I was there! I admit it. I was a computer game addict! Guilty as charged! I played a lot of DotA there (back when it was still fun). And played Natural Selection, which is a fantastic game (it’s basically halfway between Quake, Counterstrike, Team Fortress Classic and Halo 2). Anyway, I played a lot of games while I was staying there.

My room had a bathroom, with a shower, basin and toilet. It also had a large windows, a closet, small wardrobe, a chest of drawers, and a desk that was falling apart. If I opened the cupboard, the gas furnace was in there. The other wardrobe contained most of my clothes. The room was overlooking the Kelburn tunnel. It was an okay place to live. But there were a lot of exhaust fumes from the tunnel, some gas fumes sometimes from the furnace. And lots of noise from the daycare next door. The food was also a joke. They sometimes served ridiculous things.

What did they serve? Sometimes plain macaroni elbows, with grated cheese. Sometimes parsley soup. Sometimes just weird stuff. Sometimes just mashed potatoes with silver beet in it. It was odd. On the weekend I came back once and found that they had been cooking apricot chicken or something nice. Like chicken breasts baked in the oven with rice on the side? Something was off about that house. Maybe just soup with a whole onion. The food at that house didn’t make sense. I think that they used to make food for the childcare centre downstairs, and then serve us leftovers upstairs.

So anyway, I was at university.

Let us set the scene. I was living in this little room with attached bathroom. The rest of the family (Andras, Marton, Eva and Papa) were up stairs, and the dining room and living room too. Papa had dementia or something, and wasn’t 110% with it. He was also overweight, had suffered a stroke and a fall down the stairs (separate incidents) and so he lacked mobility. He was always sitting upstairs watching the TV. He just sat in his arm chair watching CNN. I was downstairs playing on my guitar, playing video games, studying, reading, and also texting Amanda. With guitar, I was looking up tabs on ultimateguitar.com, and I was trying to adjust the “action” and “intonation” of my guitar to make it sound better and function properly, just like the other guitars in my fathers shop. The guitar didn’t do well with hammer ins or pull offs, or so I thought. I also used a guitar forum and I had a big book of “how to learn guitar” given to me as a birthday(?) present by Lesley Jones, my soon to be mother in law. But I wasn’t allowed to really turn up the amp!! Because we had a childcare centre in the house, and indeed on my floor. Not only that, but the room they napped in was literally adjacent to my room. I had better internet installed so that we could better enjoy playing online games and I could more easily get school work done. I liked my readings, I enjoyed having access to the university library, but I felt just grotty and bad the whole time. I was still quite clearly unwell.

David: So what next? … I’ll talk about my symptoms for a bit, and then what I tried to do about it. I will talk about exercise, martial arts, doctors, counsellors and counselling. I will talk about advice from family and Amanda and my in laws. And I will talk about my time in university itself.

Sally: That seems like a lot to get through!

David: Yes, well it is my life story after all. So let’s get on with it. It’s a long one!

Sally: Yes, let’s.

David: Let us talk about my health first. So I was living at Raroa Road in Kelburn. And I was going to university at the Kelburn campus as well. And I was unwell. I still hadn’t recovered from that trip to Europe, and I was worried! First of all, I was exhausted. I experienced high levels of fatigue. I was very tired. It was the new normal for me. And it was way above normal levels of fatigue. Also, I wasn’t sleeping very well. For example, for a while I would wake up exactly once every 90 minutes. Which is strange, I guess that it was electronic. I would wake up drenched in sweat as well. And it would happen again and again. I had brain fog. I had bad digestion. My digestion was very bad! And I had back problems. I don’t know how to describe them. But I just felt bad. My back felt bad, and things felt “constrained” and tight. I also had issues with controlling my body temperature, and issues relating to sweating. I got this thing called post exertional malaise, which meant that I couldn’t exercise, not really. Whenever I tried to do exercise, I felt very unwell afterwards. That means that when I tried to do things like a jiu jitsu class or an aikido class in my first trimester of university, I felt very bad the next two days. This doesn’t mean “delayed onset muscle soreness”. It is something else. It also means that when I tried to do some jogging, brisk walking, yoga classes, swimming or light strength training (such as sit-ups, pushups, squats and bicep curls) that I felt bad for a couple of days. And so I will explain those in a little bit more detail later. And I will explain how the whole health situation affected me, and I will tell you all about talking to the doctors, and to my father, to Amanda, to the counsellor, to the physio and about trying to exercise. And I will flesh things out regarding my health and symptoms in general. I will also talk about how it affected my social life and my ability to attend lectures and classes at university.

[There was also another issue when it came to exercise, which is that my neck and back were chronically tightened up (by remote control) and I just felt maybe a tiny bit constrained in my neck, back and chest. Or maybe that area was just tight. And another issue is that it seems that my iliopsoas (inner hip) and perhaps inner back muscles (such as the quadratus lumborum) were also chronically tightened up. This meant that exercise wasn’t so easy or healthy for me. I can’t explain exactly what I mean, but that it just didn’t feel good. It didn’t feel the same, and I just felt bad, wrong and exhausted. I didn’t understand at the time that they were doing stuff to my muscles by remote control. I felt merely that something was wrong with me. I can’t explain it accurately. Now the point to this paragraph is that the stuff they did to tighten up my back and neck and chest and shoulders, as well as iliopsoas, meant that I was unable to enjoy or benefit from exercise so much (or at least that it limited me in this regard). Which meant that even a 5 minute jog ended up feeling bad. The same is true when it comes to a swim, pushups, sit-ups, bicep curls and other such exercises. Those made me feel bad as well. That is the problem! I certainly couldn’t manage to do something like lifting weights at the gym, or a Muay Thai class, both of which I would have loved to do back in my first year of university - and actively wanted to do.]

Sally: Okay, so exercise wasn’t working out so great for you. It wasn’t going well. And you were still feeling unwell. You’ve been unwell since the Europe trip. And you never got back into exercise. Tell me about the rest of it.

David: Sure, I’d be happy to keep going. I will tell you more.

I guess that I still need to flesh it out a bit. I had been unwell in Europe and America. And then I came back to New Zealand, and I was still unwell. So I set about trying to return myself to health, and to get back into exercise. I also sought out advice and help from a variety of people, places and sources along the way. Here are some of the things I tried…

I went to the local public library in Paraparaumu just before term started and I borrowed some books about health, wellbeing, breathing, relaxation and posture. Such as “Posture Makes Perfect” by Vic Barker. I also borrowed a few books from the library about yoga, including Tibetan yoga. And one or two about breathing or relaxation. I have forgotten the titles of most of those books. I tried the Vic Barker posture stuff out later that year, and the yoga stuff out later that year also. I tried out the breathing exercises at some point, and the relaxation exercises too (I forget exactly when I did that). I tried a lot of stuff out over time. I forget exactly when I learned about certain things, and exactly when I tried them out, but I did try a lot of different things out over the years (and especially and including the first year).

I tried out a variety of supplements. First of all, I went into a health food shop at the mall and bought a multivitamin. And I took it for a while. But it didn’t make much of a difference. I read online that all these things do is give you “expensive urine”. That is, it just gets filtered out and excreted. I also tried a few other things such as spirulina, clolera, magnesium and zinc. But none of them seemed to do much. Some years later, my mother bought me some supplements from a company called “xtend life”, which I must have taken for about a year. But I’m not sure those did much either. And so I thought that I would take her advice and take them on an ongoing basis. She started out buying them for me, and then after a while, asked me to start paying for them instead of her paying for them. So I kept buying them and taking them. They were expensive! I used to talk to my mother a fair bit, and ask her for advice. Not so much in 2007 (we weren’t talking much in 2007. Actually, I tell a lie, we did talk a bit). But from 2008 until maybe 2016/2017. I took other supplements over the year too. And tried out health foods. In my opinion, supplement don’t do much. Or at least they didn’t do much for me back then (and why should they.. because I was being attacked!!).

But back to the exercise thing.

So… when I went to university I tried to get back into exercise. I would have liked to have get into weight lifting at the gym. But it was obviously too much for me to cope with. That was what I had really been hoping to do. I wanted to build up to squatting twice my body weight, and anchoring just over 1.5 times my body weight. While at high school I had been looking forward to having access to the university gym. But it wasn’t to be! I would also have liked to do maybe 6 months of Muay Thai (just the pad work and drills, mostly - no sparring! I had done my dash there with boxing). But that wasn’t an option either. So instead I went to a jiujitsu class and an aikido class (jiujitsu was Japanese Jiujitsu, but they’re just called it “Jitsu”. It wasn’t BJJ). Just to see if I could ease back into it, and also ignore the symptoms. I tried just one class of each, but I couldn’t manage. It was too much. By that I mean that the after effects made it not worth it. Instead of feeling good afterwards, I felt bad! And it wasn’t just “delayed onset muscle soreness” (aka DOMS). DOMS is the “good” version of feeling tired the next day. Instead of that, I felt a bad version of feeling tired the next day. Next I tried going to a couple of yoga classes. I thought that yoga was supposed to be gentle and healthy and helpful. Nope. It made me feel worse. Really, much worse. I tried both a hatha class and an ashtanga class.

What else?

I asked my father for advice. And he seemed to think that I wasn’t sick, and that it was all in my head, and that all I needed was a bit of exercise. He suggested that I try going for a swim, which I did. And then I felt worse. It really didn’t feel quite right swimming. It left me feeling quite fatigued. And it wasn’t normal, nice, ‘healthy’ fatigue like I used to get from exercise. Instead it was “yucky” fatigue. I also tried jogging, cycling and strength movements (as mentioned above). These all made me feel bad. And gave me post exertional malaise (not just “delayed onset muscle soreness”). I was a full time student at the time. I wasn’t working much. I did a few hours a couple of times at my father’s music shop in Kapiti, but I found that to be a bit taxing. It was while working at my father’s shop that he suggested that I merely needed exercise (he also suggested that I wasn’t sick, and was just “allergic” to Amanda!?). Sorry that that paragraph lacked clarity and flow. I might re-edit it.

I need to discuss the term “post exertional malaise”. Because it is going to come up again and again in future. And it is also a symptom of the condition known as “chronic fatigue syndrome” that I was later “diagnosed” with. So I will discuss the term post exertional malaise a little bit later.

As for being a full time student. I struggled to attend all of my classes and lectures, so I skipped many of them. And I didn’t have much of a social life. Because I was exhausted.

Sally: did you skip many classes?

David: Yes. It’s a funny story actually. I thought that I would be able to manage morning classes, and all of the classes that I needed to attend were available back-to-back in the morning, so I arranged the schedule so that I could get all of my lectures out of the way quickly. But then I rapidly found that I couldn’t manage. I switched to the evening streams (unofficially). But then I found fairly quickly that even those lectures were pretty taxing. And so I started cutting down on university attendance to save energy. I still did the work at home. What else did I do? I skipped as many tutorials as possible, while still meeting “terms” requirements. The quality of the tutorials wasn’t that great either, but that’s another story. I was quite dedicated and systematic when it came to study (I studied hard), but I often skipped lectures. I forget how many I skipped.

David: What other symptoms did I experience??

Well first of all…

I had terrible digestion.

Terrible!

[ start editing here! Thinks the editing point.]

It was awful. I had very bad constipation. And I couldn’t do anything about it. It was like a plague on my life. It was very hard dry stool. And it was all in small hard pieces, kind of like sheep droppings or small marbles. There is a chart that you’re supposed to use as a diagnostic tool. It is called the Bristol stool chart. And on that chart it would be level one. And I had this kind of stool very often. I might discuss it more later. It’s actually a pretty important part of my story. No matter what I ate, it was often bad. The symptoms were bad. I think that most of the digestive symptoms were caused by cell towers and stuff like that like. It was horrible. Just constant digestive troubles. Caused by direct action by the cell towers, that I think directly pulled moisture from my colon. There were other things they did electronically to cause the problems too. Both direct and indirect. I don’t fully understand the electromagnetic mechanisms, the radio wave mechanisms, and how they interacted with my nervous system and then my colon, but I do know that the symptoms were a problem. A massive one. I’d just be stuck on the toilet for ages, and trying and hoping for something. Again and again. And just a few pebbles. The stool was all these hard dry pebbles the side of small marbles. I would have to really try and struggle for anything. Again and again. It was awful. There are worse problems and worse examples later on though. To be covered later.

I tried a lot of things to deal with those issues. I will give you just a couple for now. I tried massively increasing fibre (such as by eating broccoli or brown rice. I also tried eating lots of plums or kiwifruit). I also tried fibre enriched cereal, and drinking more water. Whatever was wrong with me though, I would seem to do much about it.

What else? I was freezing in some places I lived, or dangerously overheating (there was a ton of that stuff in Khandallah, but that’s a story for another day. That but it way, way in the future). Also, they would make me sweat profusely, for no known reason. Sometimes I would be freezing cold, and sweating profusely. Oh, and my mouth was dry. Just always. And I couldn’t eat. Especially in the morning. And my mouth would twist up with sour food. I had to drink water or something with every mouthful of food. I actually had to skip breakfast, and significant appetite issues. For years. Years. For years I had both dry mouth and appetite issues. As for “dry mouth”, I had a routine in the mornings, where had to drink tea, wait, eat an apple, and wait a while and then eat some “corn thins” or rice wafers with cheese on them. It was all I could manage? It’s silly!? I didn’t know that were messing with me. I didn’t know what was causing all of these symptoms. Imagine the confusion for someone like me. Sick, and all of these symptoms, and no known reason why!

They also used to give me a symptom where I got stupidly hungry. I called them hungry attacks. But that doesn’t come into play while at Raroa Road. It occurs later.

They also did these attacks called “stress him”.. where they would tighten things like my neck, back, shoulders or chest. Or other muscles. But just make me feel grotty. Their label is “stress him”. But that is just a label. Labels like that don’t matter. The problem is that it messed with my muscles. It caused problems. In a variety of ways. They told me just the other day that this attack is called “stress him”, but I don’t know if it is true. I would feel these waves of tightness, or I just have tension, and I don’t know why. I think that this sort of stuff adds up. It’s awful. It takes a toll.

And there was generalised tightness. Of muscles like in my neck, back, chest and shoulders, and perhaps iliopsoas. I’m never 100% sure how all of this works. Or I often am not sure how it works. It is weird. It was chronic (I.e. long term). I think it was chronic, at certain periods. It’s hard to know. It’s just that I had massive problems.

I also had brain fog. Quite a bit of it. And I felt bad a lot of the time. Just a lot of feeling grotty.

I was exhausted. That is the most important symptom. I was tired all the time. That was the new normal for me in life: exhaustion. It was like that for years. But it was worse exhaustion than might normally expect. I even found it difficult to climb up and down things like stairs sometimes. For example, the stairs to get into the house at Raroa road and back left me feeling exhausted. Even then stairs were exhausting!! That’s the biggest symptom: fatigue and exhaustion. There were external stairs, to get up to the house. And these had become a struggle. And even the internal stairs at Raroa Road were tiring. Stairs were exhausting. 6 months ago, I was bench pressing and doing squats. And now basic stairs were a problem for me.

See below for pictures of the stairs.

Sally: that is shocking! That is a ton of symptoms. Did you not know that it was the computers, and cell towers!?

David: no. I had no idea. I didn’t know about the computerised cell towers that could hurt at the time. I only learned of them in until 2024 (I only heard of the fae in 2022/2023, I didn’t know about them before that). I repeat, I was not aware of the existence of these cell towers or satellites that could hurt you or cause physical impairment back in 2007. I only came to be aware of their existence in 2024 (back in 2023, I thought that they were connected to, or built into, the structure of the “house” itself, I did not know that they were cell towers and satellites, as well as other “mobile” pieces of equipment).

Sally: so what did you do to try to regain and rebuild your health? Or to figure out what was wrong?

David: Now what else did I do to get my health back? I visited doctors. Going to see doctors is the main thing I did to try to get my health back. Because that is what you do if you are sick and you want to be healthy: you see a doctor. And so I talked to doctors. I told them what my problems were, and asked them to do tests, and to help me understand what was wrong, and what to do about it. At that point in my life I used to have a fair bit of respect for authority, and I thought that doctors were authorities in their field, and at least somewhat trustworthy. And so I relied on them.

I believed that doctors are your first port of call if you’re sick.

I visited a doctor. She was an Indian woman. I told her that I was feeling sick and I told her my story (I probably started at the start, and worked my way through).

I sometimes struggle with tense, so we might slip between present and past tense here.

I would have told her that the previous year I had been healthy, and that I had become sick while on holiday in Europe and hadn’t recovered. I would have explained that to her. And talked all about my symptoms. I would have told her that I was exhausted and suffering from high levels of persistent fatigue. I would have told her that I didn’t sleep well at all and suffered from constant sleep disturbance, and that I couldn’t exercise, because when I did, the following day I would feel like I was “hit by a bus”. And I would have told her that I was suffering from severe constipation, and explained that symptom in detail. And also that I had tried to re-establish patterns and habits of exercise. But she was a very bad doctor. She ordered lots of blood tests. Which all came back normal. She ordered blood tests for me on two occasions. We tested everything. Everything. When we got the blood tests back, she said that the tests were clear and nothing was wrongly test results. Everything came back normal. She lied to me though, and misled me very badly. She could have told me at any point what the actual cause of my health issues was/were. As for the severe, chronic constipation, She said that my symptoms didn’t count as constipation, because even though it was very hard dry stool, that at least a few pebbles came out in 72 hours, therefore it isn’t constipation (it was constipation. She was just playing “silly buggers” when it came to definitions of constipation). I said to her, what if is chronic fatigue syndrome? But she said that I shouldn’t worry about it, because chronic fatigue syndrome is a “self limiting problem”. I was still worried about it. I had heard that it was bad and never went away. And she ordered blood tests for me, lots of them, instead of simply helping me. She didn’t even have to test anything. She could have just told me. And she said that if it is chronic fatigue syndrome, that just to “start low, go slow” when it came to exercise. Which isn’t helpful! I couldn’t exercise at all!

I saw that doctor twice, maybe three times. I have forgotten her name, but she was an Indian woman.

I did not ask my mother for advice. I was hardly talking to her. This was because she had hurt my health very badly by not letting me rest while I was overseas. I was very, very upset with her and so I didn’t talk to her for quite some time. I later forgave her for what she did, and told her so. But when I did that she made a big song and dance about how dare I forgive her for letting me travel around Europe with her. As though she was the aggrieved party. In hindsight… she had known how sick I was, and that I really, really needed rest. She knew I was unwell, because she was the one damaging me!! Using electronic weapons!! But she damaged and hurt me anyway! And then denied me rest! And gaslit me by pretending that she didn’t believe that I was sick! And then she has a go at me for forgiving her, to try to restore the relationship. It boggles the mind!! At the time I thought that she merely disregarded my health problems because she didn’t care or didn’t believe me, and that was enough for me to not be on speaking terms. But it turns out that she caused the health problems, and ignored me when I said that I was unwell. She’s awful. In so many ways.

I thought I would try anti depressants, just in case, and also to check it off the list, kind of just to humour them. This is not a good reason to do things!! And so I tried taking fluoxetine (Prozac). The doctor prescribed it. It wasn’t good for me. It’s actually really bad for people. I took it for just a couple of days, and it was horrible. I straight away wanted to kill myself. It was horrible. I was miserable. Talking about psychiatric symptoms is weird, and doesn’t come across well, but I’ll do it. When I took it, I felt a very strong desire to kill myself. It was a very strong desire. The feelings didn’t make sense to me. But I felt a very strong desire to kill myself. And in particular I remember an incident where I was walking along Salamanca Street in Wellington (jut beside the university), and felt a strong desire to throw myself into traffic. Which isn’t normal for me! I also felt a symptom/feeling of generalised rage. And it also made my hair smell funny (this comes into the story later). I had weird chemical smelling sweat, and it got into my hair. And so, I didn’t like feeling like this! And so I quit taking the drugs.

I was no closer to figuring out what was wrong with me.

Later on, while at university, I went to a physiotherapist. But I think that was in my second year. They weren’t much help.

Sally: Okay, so you were unwell, and you had all sorts of symptoms. And you had tried to rehabilitate yourself and restore your health through exercise and rest. You had tried seeing doctors and counsellors. You had had a lot of blood tests, that got you nowhere. You were sick! And you tried anti depressants, which were very bad.

David: Yes.

What else. In spite of being unwell, the were still things that I did. Because life goes on. Sort of. Ummm, I went out to student bars a couple of times with Amanda because she wanted to dance. I also wanted to experience a bit of normal student life, even though I was unwell. We took Rachel Burston once. And Jess Mackenzie once. We went out twice, maybe three times. And that about it. Amanda wanted to go out clubbing. Ummm. It wasn’t very exciting, and I was exhausted anyway? I felt tired during those evenings. And I felt tired the day after. I was religious, but there was no prohibition on mild-to-moderate alcohol consumption. I wasn’t supposed to drink heavily, and drunkenness was discouraged in the things that I read. But I tried it out.

What else, I used to commute on the weekends. Like I would go back to Kapiti in the weekends. To spend time with Amanda. I missed her.

And then we moved to Hathaway Avenue. We moved into a spare room in my Nana’s house on Hathaway Avenue.

David: Do you think that we might come back to the rest of this tomorrow? It is a long story, after all?

Sally: You were right, it is a long story. I would be happy to come back to it tomorrow.

David: Yes, I think that suits me.

***

David: and we’re back.

Sally: let’s keep going

And then off to Hathaway Avenue..

A couple of weeks later we moved into Hathaway Avenue. This is my Nana’s house. It was the best place I could think of to rent an affordable place in Wellington. Although, in hindsight, we have just found a place in a flat in Wellington. Flatting would have been much better. I don’t know why I didn’t do that. But at the age, I still counted on family. And trusted family. Which is actually sad. In hindsight, it turns out that my family was pretty much good for nothing.

Anyway. So we moved into Karori, and rented a room (and a half) from my Nana.

Sally: Could you tell me about his house you were staying in. And what your life was like while you were living there.

David: Yes, of course I can. It was my Nana’s home. And it was a horrible and very hard period of my life. I experienced a very significant decline in my health.

David: It was the home where my Nana had lived for as long as I could remember. I used to go there for holidays and for visits while growing up. It is a place that used to feel like home. I was very used to my Nana, and she had always been close with my father, and also when I was in my teens used to visit us fairly often. And stay with us also. I loved my Nana. The house itself was down the side of a hill. And it was just up from a stream. It had four bedrooms, a kitchen dining room and a lounge. It was a little bit… rundown? Dated? And it was cold and damp. Probably because it didn’t get much sun, it was beside a stream, and down the side of a hill. But as I said, I had used to spend holidays with her at her home. I used to chill out there reading books, playing with her Lego, playing with her cats, playing with the neighbour’s kids (I had a crush on a girl who lived there). I had fond memories of Nana serving me breakfast at Hathaway Avenue. Even though it is kind of silly. She had a favourite way of serving breakfast, where we had Weetbix covered with a sprinkling of sweeter (more expensive) cereal like nutrigrain, followed by toast with peanut butter and Vegemite, cut into little squares. What else? We were in a spot surrounded with hills and staircases. Like, there was a staircase to get up to the street, and a bit of a walk to the bus stop. Which is important, because things like ordinary stairs or hills had become a difficult thing for me.

She was weird though. We had conflict. I thought it was just the sort of fights you might have right after getting married. But she was a new Christian. So I thought that may have been it. As it actually happens to be, she was just a bad egg all along. Okay: so I was a Christian, and I almost always assumed good intentions on the part of other people, by default. For example, I was golden rule oriented. And so when we fought and argued, I assumed that she was a good faith actor. Which might seem bizarre or naive. But I should mention that she came from a bad family, and a bad environment growing up. So I made allowances for that.

Sally: Were you very unwell while you were there?

My digestion was horrible.

I came to believe that I was gluten intolerant. It was suggested to me by Amanda that this was the case. Or her mother, I forget which. I tried it out, and it seemed to make a difference. But perhaps some of the symptoms were caused by cell towers. Or maybe lots of the symptoms were related to cell towers, and so when I tested gluten intolerance, I thought it made sense?? I think they lied to me: I eat gluten containing grains, and then I get symptoms, and then I assume the symptoms are caused by the food. It’s a scientific test. But actually, it was subverted by messing with the testing instrumentation. That is, my body.

And then I finished university for the year, with straight A’s. Just fast forward. My marks were good.

Now as for exercise, I tried to get back into it and failed. Again. I just wasn’t well. But I tried. What did I try? I tried doing yoga from a book, even though I had already tried two yoga classes in the past. I printed out a bunch of “achievable” poses. But they didn’t work for me. I think that it was the tightening in my back/torso that did it. It just felt bad afterwards, and the exercises didn’t help. I also had “post exertional malaise” afterwards. I tried doing breathing exercises from yoga as well. Aka pranayama. I did sone stuff from a book called “posture makes perfect” by vic barker. And some other stuff. I tried going for walks up to the top of the hill behind the house and back. But I was extremely tired all the time. Everything made me feel awful, and I kept on getting post exertional malaise (I felt like I had been “hit by a bus” after exercise). I actually felt very unwell here. It was an extremely horrible time in my life. I lost weight. Somehow, I think that my memories didn’t fully form during that period of time. Some of it is kind of blanked out. I think my mind must have been a little bit fried back then.

I got a job cleaning houses. At first I tried to do fast food. I did one afternoon of work, and went home and went splat on the bed. I sink fast food. The previous year I had been able to handle things like boxing, running, jump rope, pushups, sit-ups, weightlifting and anything I wanted. But now I couldn’t even manage a few hours working at Burger King. Anyway, it was just a trial. Fast food wasn’t for me.

And then it was time for our wedding. We got married on the 19th of January 2008. We did so at the waterfront cafe and kitchen. Well actually, we did so on the beach just across the stream from the bar and cafe. There is a little bridge. I think that it might still be there. And so we got married! Which is insane. But that’s life. Mike Hocking officiated. We had about 60 guests. We had a paid photographer and catering. Amanda’s Aunty Megan made a chocolate wedding cake. Someone contributed a bar tab. The whole day went pretty smoothly.

And then we went on a honeymoon to Australia. We went to Surfer’s Paradise, in the Gold Coast. It was very hot. I’ve been to Surfer’s Paradise before. I’d have been just as happy to have gone somewhere in NZ, but Simon and Terry paid for us to go to Australia (Amanda’s Uncle and his partner Terry, now wife). It was very generous of them. While we were over there, we were both a little unwell, especially Amanda (I think that she was faking being ill though). This meant that we couldn’t do some of the stuff that we wanted to do. Like go to amusements parks (such as Dreamworld, Movieland, Dreamworld, Australia Zoo, Wet and Wild or Seaworld. We did some fun things though, like look around shops and go to a few tourist things like a mirror maze. I wasn’t really well enough to enjoy any of those places, but I could possibly have coped with going to Australia Zoo, or walking around movie world. We didn’t have enough money to do all of these attractions though, anyway. By coped, I mean push myself to get through the day. Sometimes I just pushed myself to get things done, even though I was feeing unwell. But Amanda was unwell too (she said that she had sinus issues) and some couldn’t do anything much. Truth be told, I have forgotten much of it. And as I write this, my mind feels a little bit blah.

And so we got back from our honeymoon, arriving back in New Zealand. We were still students living at my Nana’s house. And we felt that we needed a better place to live, and neither Amanda or I liked Karori very much. The place we stayed at in Karori was cold, damp, isolated and far from everything (it was also very lonely). And I had been quite unwell there! And Amanda’s Aunty offered us a place to stay in Mount Cook. And so we took it. And then we moved into an apartment in Mount Cook, Wellington. Hansen street. A studio apartment.

But anyway, we moved in… it turns out that it’s extremely noisy!! There were very loud, very annoying road works planned for Adelaide Road, late at night. There was construction to both the left and right of us, that started early-ish in the morning. One block of apartments was going up. And another block of apartments was being repaired and renovated. And the Adelaide Bar was extremely noisy on Friday and Saturday night. And our neighbours across the hallway were noisy too, and liked slamming the door and yelling “goodbye” very loudly at night. Constantly. I think they were Chinese. And the door dampener didn’t work, for the door to the staircase. And we were right beside the stairwell. It was noisy. And not that nice living there. And there was no double glazing, which might have helped with noise. And the garage door was noisy, for the basement garage. And the student accomodation across the lane was noisy. The only thing to do with an apartment like that is move out. It was horrible.

Let us discuss the good points of the apartment, and so on… The good side is that it was warm. It was warm and comfortable. It was bright and airy. The kitchen was perfectly adequate, and the shower worked well and it had warm water. It was fairly close to multiple bus stops. It had a balcony. Downsides, the blinds broke and weren’t fixed. The tapware broke, and our landlord never fixed them.

And I worked a bit. I cleaned houses and offices. It was bad for me, so I cut down on it a bit over time, until I stopped doing cleaning altogether. I was actually really quite unwell, but I felt obliged to “push through”. Even though it was actually hating me. I found a bit of work tutoring a high school student (Ambika Saha). And I had some work for my lecturer Martin Turner. He wanted someone to prepare spreadsheets for him to use as a resource for/with his students. I had to take a bunch of balance sheets from various companies listed on the NZ or Australian stock Exchanges, and input numbers from them into a spreadsheet, to be used as a sample for his students in his financial statement analysis classes. He taught “fundamental analysis”. See also: Graham and Dodd. He wanted to have a big file of them. He still uses a similar batch of documents for his classes as far as I know. I also worked as a tea attendant. Where I made tea in the afternoons at the university. It seems like a funny job, but they’re paid me for it. I was exhausted all the time. They kept on doing stuff to me electronically. It was a horrible period of time in my life. But I just pushed through. I kept getting worse.

I studied hard, and did well academically.

What shall I do next? I might just talk about my health in 2008. Talk about health.

What else?

I played computer games. I played guitar. I got better at guitar. And I tried to get my friendship with Ben Jack going again (he wa my childhood best friend), but it floundered. I was too tired to be sociable. I spent some time reading. Things kept on carrying on. The fact that I spent weekends in Kapiti meant that I didn’t socialise enough. I had lost weight. I still saw my family a bit. I was on speaking terms with my family. I was losing weight and getting weaker! Which was horrible to me. Absolutely horrible.

I also had to review a lot of material from sixth and seventh form before I could tutor Ambika. She was a really easy student to teach by the way. She practically taught herself. Although perhaps I actually did a good job and was helpful. She was a student at Queen Margaret’s college in Wellington. It is a private school and is the best girls school in Wellington. She ended up being top of a few subjects in her final year. She was top of economics, top of English, top of accounting and she also won the “scholar award”. Next, this is an awkward topic, but she was a lovely young woman and a good student and I didn’t have a crush on her. It wasn’t even on my radar. I saw her only as a student. But because the world is the way that it is, I have to say it.

Anyway, it was a hell with no sleep. That was the Hansen Street apartment in Mt. Cook.

People kept on moving it. Tradesmen and other worker seemed to be doing it. Using road works as an excuse. We once found it across town in the parking lot for Te Papa, the museum. I had to call the council to find out where it had been hidden. I think that it was either Matthew or my father who did it.

But then someone lit our car on fire. Sorry, that was sudden. You’re supposed to write things a little more smoothly. There was an arson attack on our car, and someone set it on fire. And the whole thing was a burnt out husk. It was really annoying. We relied on that car quit a bit. And so we were carless. And it was quite upsetting!

We spent the weekends in Kapiti. With Amanda’s family. They treated me like a part of their family. Or so I felt.

***

We moved back to Kapiti halfway through the second trimester in 2008. We kept going to university, as usual and as expected. But now we were commuting. She commuted as far as the Kelburn campus, but I commuted only as far as the Pipitea Campus. We both studied fairly hard. Well, Amanda studied hardish. And then after maybe 3-4 months of living in Kapiti, we had our end of trimester exams, and finished university for the year. I got good marks, and Amanda passed her papers fairly comfortably. But we’re back in Kapiti, which was nice. Kapiti feels a lot more like home. I suppose I should tell you more about the Kapiti Coast sometime, but perhaps I will do that in the notes. The house in Kapiti was quite cold. We had to use the fire place quite a bit. I never could quite figure out why that place was so cold. But it felt more like home. And once the fireplace was going, it was fine. I was also able to spend time with friends and family there. Or so I thought. The funny thing is that I moved back to Kapiti just as my father moved away from Kapiti. His music shop failed, he got married to Vivian, and moved to Lower Hutt, and moved to a spot up in the hills, largely inaccessible other than by car trip. So even though I moved back to Paraparaumu, my father had moved out of town. I missed my father. One of the good things though is that we were able to start spending time with friends from high school and church. And so we started spending time with people like Jesse Orchard, Aaron Oldcorn, Nathan Thatcher, John Cosgrove, Lauren Cosgrove, Ashley King. And their families too, a little bit. Including the Orchards, who had been part of my life since the age of 15. We were also able to resume regular church attendance. I was going to church at the CCC. I think Amanda petered out of church attendance somewhere along the way.

While living in Kapiti, I visited a few doctors at the University medical clinic at the Pipitea Campus. I saw a male and a woman. The male was white, and the woman was Chinese. Her name was Dr Susie Poon, and his name I cannot recollect. I told them about my health problems. But the 🥼 were useless. I told them a bunch of stuff. And also asked for more tests. Nothing came of it. I asked them for help, but they didn’t help me. They pretended that there was nothing wrong with me. They both (of course) knew what was wrong

What else? I tried to revive a habit of having a shared lunch after church. Here is how it is, we used to have this thing called “youth lunch”, for the youth group. And so I revived it. But it was youth lunch, but without us being young any more. Uhh. It sounded better when I proposed it to the others. The name was naff, but the idea was good. And then we did it and let it going for a fairly long while. But basically after church we all went to the shops to get something to share/eat, and then met up at someone’s house afterwards. And after lunch we did something like cards, board games or video games (for example, Bang!, Catan or Guitar Hero). Sunday lunch was a very consistent habit.

So anyway, it was the summer of 2008/2009. My health and well being improved with the warmer weather. And I think that I had some Alexander technique lessons, which relieved tension (but also they switched off the machines during the sessions, only to “re-tension” my back in the days or weeks after I went to the sessions/lessons.. it is complicated). Here is how it was: I had electronically created remote control tension in my neck, back, hips, torso and overall body, and then I went to these sessions, and the moment they started doing stuff, I felt better. I felt better because of two reasons: firstly the lessons themselves relieve tension in the neck and back. Secondly, they switch off the machines that by remote control had created the tension. The relief of the tension was as though it was by magic. Again, I apologise for the inconvenience of coping with my poor explanations and descriptions. But anyway, the lessons made me feel wonderful. I couldn’t explain it, but they made me feel like a human being again.

And then I needed to plan out the following year at university. But I wasn’t sure if I could manage. So I tried to see if I could get an appropriate diagnosis, so that I could get permission study part time and still attend university. I went to Doctor Susie Poon at the Victoria University Medical Centre. And I got a medical certificate recommending that I be able to study part time while still receiving the government student allowance. Once I had this, I planned out my next year. The diagnosis was for “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I think that she was the first doctor to diagnose me with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

The plan was to study part time. Actually, it was to study just under part time. In think it was five papers instead of six. But maybe they were easier papers? I don’t know. It was a less tough year. But I also had a part time job tutoring at the University. I had two classes of accounting students, which meant that I was getting relatively good money for non physical work, AND I got paid for time spent on preparation and marking. No more cleaning jobs!!

What next. I had the whole year planned out, and things were looking bright. I wasn’t 100% well, but I felt much better. And I felt pretty positive.

What else did I do?

I thought that I might need to rely on a doctor’s clinic back home in Paraparaumu rather than the doctor’s clinic in town. The is why I switched to a new clinic. But I think that I chose the wrong doctors.

And I also was still tutoring. I kept that job. Because it was just one trip into town per week, and two one hour sessions talking to students. I could do it even with very low energy levels. And I got paid for all of the preparation time, which I could do at home.

I enjoyed my job tutoring. It was easy, and enjoyable. My students rated me highly. And as I said, I was only required to actually be at the university for two hours once a week (if I remember correctly). The rest of the hours could be done at home, and carried out in my own time.

And that was it. That was how I dropped out of university. And become a university dropout, not a student. They just damaged me so much that I couldn’t study anymore. And it was horrible. I was too unwell.

I was a good student. And an intelligent man in general. But my days of studying were over.

I also couldn’t work a job. I was unemployed and unemployable. Technically, I did do a little bit of part time work. But only just. And not many hours.

And so I became unemployed and unemployable, and unable to study.

And I think that we should leave it there for no.

I am planning to write up a few more parts to my life story soon.

*****

Notes

1-8

*****

Note One:

Amanda and religion

Amanda became a Christian back in high school. I met her when we were fifteen. I had just moved from one town to another. And I didn’t know anyone. We up ended sitting together in mathematics (they put me in mainstream math, ugh, I had done very badly in the streaming test for reasons I have explained elsewhere). She and I were also in Accounting and Japanese together. We quickly became friends.

She was a troubled girl with a less than ideal upbringing. When I first met her, she had claimed that she was molested by her step father (her mother’s husband). She also told me that her father was an alcoholic and exposed her to drug use. She had a lot of stories about her father, who she really didn’t seem to like.

She was vaguely associated with the same set of people who also went to the Coast Community Church, without being one of them. She had gone, on occasion to church events or evenings, but it wasn’t her cup of tea. I was an attendee of the Coast Community Church. It was my “home church”.

When she was about 17/18, she became a Christian. Partly I think it was because her Nana Kath suggested it and gave her some religious literature, and partly because I invited her along to church.

We believed in things like salvation and the forgiveness of sins. And of being a new person. She came along to church with us. She was baptised. The idea is that you are saved, forgiven, and that your sins are washed away, and that you have “become a new person in Christ”. She did a pre baptism course with the Cotton family, who were a respected family at our church. She was baptised by Stan Rolston, one of the longterm elders of the church. Later on we volunteered with the youth group a bit, in our early twenties.

Jesse Orchard was a mutual friend, his father, Geoff Orchard, was (and is) an elder. I think that he may have been merely a deacon back then? But I cannot recall. Nathan Thatcher was also a mutual friend. Nathan and Jesse were both school friends and church friends. Ditto for Ashley King. John and Lauren Cosgrove were church friends of ours also. A lot of mutual friends and acquaintances visited our church, or attended it. If even for just a couple services, or a few youth group events. It was fairly popular back when I was 15/16, and Andrew Crawshaw was still running it. Rachael Burston came along a bit as well. She was Amanda’s closest friend in High School.

Amanda and I were the sort of couple who talked about religion or belief often, and would pray before bed. I used to read and study the Bible often.

More information about Amanda’s parents and drug use.

Amanda used to say that her dad passed out drunk a few times in front of her. And on one occasion she thought he was dead. And then she had to climb out of the window, to go home. And that after that she didn’t see him for ages. She said that when she stayed with him as a child, the house was always cold, dirty and horrible. They didn’t have enough blankets etc. Her father was a punk, and had actually joined or started a band. He was that type. The band was called “Goat Rider”, and on stage he used to ride a rocking horse with a goat’s skull on it while breathing fire. And on one occasion, his hair caught fire. They even showed me the video one day. He had since quit drinking and become a lay teacher in the Anglican Church (He was a member of St. Mark in Raumati Beach). He later got a masters degree in theology. His job was a copy editor, or editor, or in charge of layouts for magazines or something. He worked on the magazine for the nursing council of NZ (which is a respected Government entity).

Her mother was an alcoholic also. But according to Amanda, “never used to drink around Amanda” when Amanda was growing up. Lesley drank way too much all her life, and she still does, as far as I know. She also was a neglectful mother who didn’t feed Amanda proper food. And used to feed her too much sweet stuff. Amanda ate too much junk food when she was young. And even had to have baby teeth removed!! And this led to her adult teeth growing in wrong and crooked. Which is disturbing!?

Amanda also engaged in self harm back in high school, and used to cut herself with pieces of glass. And at one point had cuts on her arms. All over her arms. It’s horrific. I don’t understand why teenage girls are like this!

Her Nana Kath was a good influence on Amanda. And encouraged Amanda to become a Christian.

Note Two:

The Orchard family

The Orchard family consisted of Geoff and Christine Orchard, Jesse Orchard, David Orchard, Karl Orchard and Annalise Orchard.

I spent plenty of time with them both as a teenager and afterwards. When I first moved to Kapiti, my father was a member of the CCC (before switching to the Meadows Pentecostal Church). Dad encouraged me to be a part of their life.

Jesse Orchard later married Natalie Hymers. I used to work alongside Natalie Hymers as a cleaner. We both went to Paraparaumu College. And we both went to the CCC youth group. She was a flatmate of ours, and very difficult, filthy and messy. We worked to basically “house train” her. She was a friend. Her mother and step father were meth addicts who abused and neglected their children.

Geoff ran a joinery, the orchard joinery. It was the family business. Christine worked in the joinery a little bit too. But was mostly an office worker and home maker. Their family was briefly over in Papua New Guinea as missionaries. Also, Jesse used to attend the local Christian school which used to have the ACE system. The local Christian school was located on Tutanekai street, which is exactly right beside KYS, the local free youth medical clinic.

David Orchard married Emma (I forget her maiden name), who had previously dated Andrew Crawshaw. Andrew Crawshaw was the youth pastor for a while at the CCC. And baptised me. Andrew Crawshaw later boarded at our house, and has also worked for my father. He is a musician, and also ran a music shop for a while in Kapiti. David Orchard became a youth pastor. He and his wife worked at “Kapiti Impact Church”. And then worked at the Zeal Youth Development Centre. For all I know, he might still be there.

What else?

Both David Orchard and Jesse Orchard faked having “chronic fatigue syndrome” and/or “post viral fatigue syndrome”.

David Orchard faked having cfs back when I was about 17-19. He had months and months of it. He had to quit his job, and it was horrible. People acted as though he was dying, or that he was experiencing something like terminal decline. He just slept all day, and couldn’t do anything. He was married, and his wife Emma had to support the both of them. They moved as a couple up north to Auckland, because they wanted to work in ministry. And then while he was up north, a pastor prayed for him, and he was miraculously healed. It was at a healing meeting at a pentecostal/charismatic church. He was healed just in an instant. He actually gave a talk up front in the CCC to tell us all about his miraculous healing. It was a big deal. He went from sick and feeling awful, to being out-and-about and exercising again. Just straight away he was doing stuff like kayaking and getting fit. He actually did have problems for years, and eventually had a shoulder surgery. But I’m not sure if this was related to the cfs.

I also stayed with David and Emma for about 3-4 days when I was 18. He just slept all day. How it happened is that my father went away for a week, and needed a space for me to stay, because he didn’t trust me to stay home alone without him for a week (!!!). I was put into Jesse Orchard’s house for that week. My father and Jesse’s father arranged it. They had known one another for a fair while. But then Jesse’s grandfather died and they needed more space at the Orchard’s house for visiting relatives. And so I ended up staying a few nights with David and Emma Orchard, at the house where they were house sitting. It was a fairly nice house, with a nice pet dog. And only 5 minutes walk away from my usual place of residence at Linwood Drive. Anyway, he had “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome” and was very unwell. I say faking, but I think he actually had symptoms. And that his symptoms were electronically induced. He looked unwell. He looked awful, dreadful, or whatever adjective you prefer.

Jesse faked having CFS when I was about 19-21 (I can’t fully recall exactly when he “had” it). But anyway, he became sick. Natalie and he had just become a couple. She was his girlfriend. And then he got sick. And he had about 18 months as a sick person. I forget exactly how long. But I was sick at the same time. We were friends and both sick. He played a lot of World of Warcraft. He rode on his exercise bike (graded exercise therapy), to prevent de conditioning, and he took Powerade which he made from powder to maintain electrolytes. He went to many, many doctor’s appointments. And he got a lot of blood tests. His brother used to drive him to appointments. He was as sick as a dog. He did balance table therapy as well (which just made him unwell). He lived at home with his parents. He probably had electronically induced symptoms.

As part of his story, he claimed that he was healed through prayer. But then he later changed his story to say that it was just counselling and quitting world of warcraft. He also said that playing world of Warcraft gave him a “fake sense of achievement”. What else? He had later stints of poor health in his life, and he never really did much in life. He did a diploma in IT in his late twenties. He was a high school graduate. He and I were friends. He was my best friend in high school. Which is complicated thing, okay? Because it was like.. by default? Because who else would fill that slot? Aaron? Amanda? Max? I felt like we weren’t hugely close, and I didn’t know him perfectly well. But who else? I definitely wasn’t his best friend, that seemed to be Chips (aka Jono), or “tall Daniel”, or Chris Westwood. But he was mine. Probably I felt like my closest “friends” were my family.

Chips was one of Jesse’s friends. He liked footman frenzy, and other Warcraft Three: Frozen Throne based games. He had a car, and used to drive people places. His real name was Jonathan East. He went flatting for a bit with Jesse and (tall) Daniel up in Palmerston North, which was a bit of a debacle. He tried to do an OE in the UK, which was a disaster. And then worked as a call centre operator for WINZ for a number of years.

****

Note Three

Christianity

I was a Christian, and quite religious. It’s difficult to explain that now. Because I’m on the outside of that whole thing, looking back in on it. I’m on the outside looking in, if that makes sense. And some of it is good, and some of it still makes sense to me. But some of it seems odd. And I have also have had a thoroughly horrible life in some ways.

So anyway, I was the type of person to do daily devotionals, read the Bible every day. I had Bible reading plans. I went to church and youth group. I kept attending church as an adult. I read Christian books, and borrowed books from the church library. What else? I went to pastors and elders for advice. David Walker and Jesse Orchard were both pastors kids. Mike McHocking was a pastor, and a family friend. And their family was important to ours. I didn’t trust non Christians, and I mistrusted liberal Christians. I went to Bible studies (such as the one ran by Jared and Amanda Doncliff), and even invited Jenna and Natalie along to it. Jenna briefly became a Christian, but that fizzled out. I was often to be found lying down in the middle of the lounge floor in 5 Weka Road, in front of the fireplace, reading the Bible. Accompanied by one or more cats. Later in my life I would listen to Christian podcasts and recorded sermons as a way to pass the time. I listened to an audio Bible recording, I listened to sermons, and I listened to ministry podcasts. I also grew up going to the parachute music festival. And I memorised scripture. I even had flash cards. And had a prayer journal, at one point.

Amanda and I were the sort of couple who talked about religion or belief often, and would pray before bed. I used to read and study the Bible often.

****

Note Four

John Jennings

I used to believe that it was important to have good people to talk to. Good Christians who you can trust. And there was this guy at church, John Jennings. And he had been friendly and kind to me on a number of occasions. For example, I had shown up at church on a couple of occasions too late for “youth lunch” when I was a teenager. And he offered to have me around to he and his wife’s house for lunch instead. Which I thought was very kind. He was also a greeter at church. As an adult, I got to know him a little bit. He had Amanda and I over to his place for dinner once (and he came to my place once also). And it was this idea I had, that you’re supposed to have good people able to speak into your life. To offer you advice and guidance. So we put ourselves out there. Anyways, he was the guy in our church who ran an ersatz Christian book shop. At dinner, Amanda and I told him the story of how we got married, and also how my health had fallen apart. That I had been diagnosed with “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome” by my doctor. And that I was now a university drop out, chronically ill and unable to work. He also showed me his shelf of Christian books for sale. He happened to have a copy of “Where is God When it Hurts” by Philip Yancey. Which I purchased. He also lent me a copy of “Exploring Church History: 20 Years of Christ’s People”. Which I later returned to him. In hindsight, nothing about anything he said or did was real. All fake. It’s sad.

****

Note Five

The Alexander Technique

Stuff from Google/Wikipedia

The Alexander Technique is an educational, mind-body approach that improves posture, movement, and coordination by helping individuals recognize and release chronic tension and harmful habits. Developed by F.M. Alexander in the 1890s, it focuses on freeing the relationship between the head, neck, and back to reduce pain and enhance ease of movement in daily activities.

***

The Alexander technique is most commonly taught in a series of private lessons which may last from 30 minutes to an hour. The number of lessons varies widely, depending on the student's needs and level of interest. Students are often performers, such as actors, dancers, musicians, athletes and public speakers, people who work on computers, or those who are in frequent pain for other reasons. Instructors observe their students, and provide both verbal and gentle manual guidance to help students learn how to move with better poise and less strain. Sessions include chair work – often in front of a mirror – during which the instructor will guide the student while the student stands, sits and walks, learning to move efficiently while maintaining a comfortable relationship between the head, neck, and spine, and table work or physical manipulation.

In the United Kingdom, there is no regulation for who can offer Alexander technique services. Professional organisations do exist, however, typically offering three-year courses to people becoming instructors.

***

David's Section:

It can help to relieve tension and alleviate symptoms.

It's kind of like a type of bodywork. Or some parts of it are like that. It's hard to explain. Just watch a video on YouTube if you're interested. It's not actually that useful. You're probably better off just walking, cycling and doing a short stint of tai chi (a whole bunch of tai chi). Although you shouldn't keep doing tai chi long term, it weakens you and ruins your posture. Even though it relieves tension.

The Alexander technique is a form of bodywork as well as education, and it helps to relieve tension. I think that charlatans also use it to mess with people.

***

When I went to these lessons, I had already had my body messed with a lot by remote control. And my neck, back, chest, shoulders and inner hips had all been tightened up chronically. The whole thing was tightened up long term. And when I went to these lessons, and the moment they placed their hands on me, the remote control tightening ceased, and they released the hold that the computer had had on me. And so I enjoyed the tension releasing and tension dissolving benefits of the technique itself, as well as the feeling of having the cell tower remote control tightening released at the same time.

It was like magic. My whole body felt totally different. At the time, I believed it to be extremely beneficial. But it was at least 60% that they just ceased tightening up my body by means of remote control and the use of muscles!!

But just one lesson, and I felt like a whole new person. I felt human again, I could breathe again.

****

Note Five

Another note:

We (Amanda and I) spent weekends in Kapiti, often with Amanda’s family.

I rapidly became part of Amanda’s family.

I would go along to their weekly family dinner, and also to lunch at their house on the weekend. I would go to Christmas with their family. Which was sometimes held in Paraparaumu, sometimes in Foxton or the Wairarapa. Christmas with Amanda’s family was usually pretty good. I will talk a little bit about her family here. And I intend to talk more about her family later on. I liked her family.

****

Note Six

I will include a few maps or pictures of Paraparaumu (or Kapiti Coast as a whole), so as to give people some feel for the lay of the land in general.

****

Note Seven

I saw a physio in my second year at university.

I had moved house. And Shane had hurled a set of drawers to me while moving house, I caught it awkwardly, and my shoulder clicked weirdly. It hurt for a while. And then when it didn’t feel right I went to the physio for some treatment, because it still hurt a bit. It was janky. He gave me some exercises etc. they didn’t help.

In fact, they made me feel blah. This is because my torso was locked down. My neck was tight, inner hip, and back and so on. And so the exercises made me feel bad.

The shoulder pain (right shoulder) went away when I had an Alexander technique lesson. The first lesson.

I saw a lot more physiotherapists later on. From 2009 - maybe 2012. I’ll talk about that later (I hope/intend).

****

Note Eight

Intentions: what I intend (hope) to write about later

In parts five and six, I intend to write about the times I went to the elders for prayer and advice, especially regarding my worsening health problems. Including going to the Elder Geoff who has had two sons with CFS.

In part seven (or later, which might cover from 2011 all the way until 2014), I might write about the time I reached out to Stan Rolston. I needed advice and guidance. I was very unwell, an invalid, and getting worse.

This has been a draft. And indeed it is a rough draft. But they keep on harming me. I hope to finish up this page some time, and then to write up the next few sections of the story over the coming weeks. If possible.

More notes

Preview of parts 5 and 6

This next stuff should probably be in parts 5 and 6. But I’ll put it here for now. It kind of should have wound up about here.

During the year of 2009, I tried to recover. But my health was very bad. Things went nowhere fast. I struggled with the cold and with my weight. I could never seem to get warm and stay warm. I was tired all the time, and could never seem to get enough sleep. I socialised a bit, particularly through church and lunch afterwards. But my social life was pretty sparse. I still had a relationship with my family. Matthew even lived with us for about two months. It was really nice having him live with us for a while.

I did a lot of things to try to improve my health and to recover. In particular, I went to the doctor a lot. I went to physiotherapists. And I read books about chronic fatigue syndrome and I tried various natural therapies. I asked my father and my mother for advice. And I asked Amanda and my in laws as well. And I tried to stay warm!! What else.. I played DotA and learned to play melee. And I played battleships and other custom wc3:ft games.

Addendum:

In which I drop out of university for the second time.

One year passed, and I didn’t really recover. The year wasn’t fun. I felt bad all year. We are now in 2010. And then in the summer I improved. I had some Alexander technique lessons/sessions with a woman in Paekākāriki. And that relieved symptoms quite a bit. I also went to some religious meetings where you’re supposed to receive “miraculous healing”. I didn’t believe in that being likely to happen, but I thought I would give it a shot (David Orchard, Jesse’s older brother, and Geoff Orchard’s oldest son had previously had “chronic fatigue syndrome” and then been miraculously healed at a healing meeting in Auckland). You were supposed to preemptively have “faith” that you would be healed… so I tried to “have faith”.

And then I went back to university. And hoped for the best. And then I wasn’t very well, and symptoms returned. And I wasn’t that well to begin with. I thought that I was healthy enough, and only just healthy enough, and then the symptoms returned. And so I dropped out. I quit after six weeks, because I had paid a lot of money for university, and I wanted to cut my losses, and the sooner you do that the better. And I didn’t know what was wrong with me. It’s horrible living like that. I had dropped out again. It sucked. I had no path forward.

A whole ton of visits to doctors occurred throughout 2009 and 2010. These were spearheaded by doctor Amanda Clarke. I want to write about that later. But that belongs in parts five and six. Parts five and six should hopefully cover 2009 and 2010.

Also visited many physio-therapists, but I don’t remember when all of these occurred. I think from 2010-2012.

And so by the end of 2010, I was really sick and not improving. I was unemployed, unemployable, and unable to study. It was horrible. I will write up parts 5 and 6 sometime later.

***

I saw lots of doctors. Lots. Including specialists.

I saw doctors in the out patient clinic of Wellington hospital. And the neurology department. And the cardiology and respiratory department.

And then spent a night in Wakefield (?) private hospital. For a sleep study. A private hospital.

And I saw lots of physiotherapists too.

Always, those medical professionals made me worse. And never made me better. Doctors make things worse. I had some bad experiences where doctors are concerned. I will write about them later.

Many years later, I saw things like occupational therapists and nurses and support workers. But they were often awful.

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