Life Story: Parts 5, 6 and 7, section A

I started writing this on the 23rd of May, 2026, it is now the 7th of August

I intend to divide it up into section A, B, C and "additional notes"

I’m still working on it. It needs so much work.

Parts five, six and seven of my life story

Section A

David: Okay, so here we are. I’m sick and a university drop out. I have a part time job tutoring, but I don’t have many hours of work per week.

I don’t know how best to tell this story.

Sally: Well how do you want to tell it?

David: I am hoping to take the story from early 2009 through until the start of 2011. Or perhaps until the end of 2011. I haven’t decided yet.  Probably I’ll take it through to the end of 2011.

Sally: What do you think that the story will include? Could you give the audience a preview before we start?

David: Yes, I will do that. I will give people a preview.

I think that the story will include…

Having chronic fatigue syndrome. Going to doctors to get advice and guidance. Getting on to welfare. Getting blood tests. Going to friends and family to get advice. Talking to people at church to get advice. Getting advice from books and websites. Trying my best to recover. Attending prayer meetings and asking the elders of my church to pray for me. Visiting physiotherapists. Trying my best to go back to university in 2010, but quitting (again) after the first six weeks of term. Trying everything I could think of to recover my health. A fair bit about my social life. And a little bit about how I passed the time. Still being sick at the end of it all.

Sally: Cool, let us get on with it. When were you first diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome and what is it?

David: I can’t quite remember when they first diagnosed me with it. It may have been either Doctor Susie Poon at the Victoria University Student Clinic or perhaps Doctor Amanda Clarke at the Kapiti Youth Support Clinic. I think that it was the former, not the latter. But I might be wrong. She also gave me a medical certificate that allowed me to be eligible for the student allowance while studying only part time. The student allowance is the weekly welfare payment that the government gives you to be able to afford to live while studying. At the time it was worth $190 per week (including accomodation supplement). It isn’t quite enough to live on, but it’s okay. You maybe need to scrape together an extra $50 per week on top of it. I was planning to have a reduced study schedule, so as to conserve energy due to poor health. But I didn’t need to reduce it all that much. But if I reduce it, I could lose the student allowance. So I had to get a medical certificate to be allowed to have a reduced study schedule. And Dr Susie Poon gave me a diagnosis and the medical certificate that I needed so that I could have a reduced study schedule but still be eligible for the student allowance. Another note: I had seen doctors on a number of occasions about things like RSI, and asked for extra time in exams - or it may have been the right to take breaks during exams to rest my wrist and walk around - I had bad wrists. I think that Susie Poon might have been one of the doctors I saw for that issue. They let me take my exams in a spare room sometimes, and I was allowed to take a break every hour to walk around and give my wrists a break. I don’t think that they gave me additional time to work on the exam paper itself, just additional time in the form of walking around to rest and relax my wrists.

By the way, I saw a lot of doctors and physiotherapists (and some other medical professionals) in the time period from late 2006 until 2014. However many of my medical records have either vanished, or weren’t kept in the first place. Or if they were kept, they weren’t mailed to the right place after I went to a new clinic, and so didn’t end up being a part of the records kept with my GP. And in some cases when I went to a clinic for a one off appointment they weren’t forwarded to the right place. Also I saw a lot of physiotherapists and they don’t tend to mail notes to your GP’s clinic. Some of the doctor’s and physiotherapist’s visits I will talk about in my life story don’t have dates or records associated with them. And some visits will have been forgotten altogether.

For example, when I saw Dr Diane Carter at KYS in 2012. Those notes vanished. And the next doctor at KYS too. Their notes vanished as well. And there was one doctor I saw at the Coastal Medical Rooms. I have forgotten his name, I think that it was Dr Paul Davis. Those notes were never collected into my long term records, and seem to have got lost along the way. And my notes from Team Medical in Coastlands, those never got sent anywhere. And I had one set of notes relating to allergy tests in Wellington. Those never got sent anywhere either. And all of my notes from the Victoria University clinic, I can’t seem to get those! They vanished and they won’t give me electronic records, let alone physical records. And so this means that many of my notes aren’t available. I don’t have any notes from Willis Street Physio, Raumati Beach Physio, TBI Physiotherapy (The Back Institute), Nathan Scott* at Team Medical Physio or Victoria University Student Physio. I don’t even have them for my own records or purposes. I am currently trying to get ahold of more of them.

*Nathan Scott: (he was the worship leader at the CCC, his father was the chief elder for a long time).

Anyway, I got a diagnosis. The diagnosis came from either Doctor Susie Poon or Doctor Amanda Clarke.

**

What is it? What is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS)?

Here is a definition from Google Search: 

“Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), also formally called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS), is a debilitating and complex long-term medical condition. It is characterized by profound, persistent physical and mental exhaustion that does not improve with rest and severely limits everyday activities.”

For more information, you might try reading the stuff on the other end of these two links. They aren’t the only place to get information about CFS.

https://www.cdc.gov/me-cfs/diagnosis/index.html

https://www.cdc.gov/me-cfs/about/index.html

Sally: Okay, I’ll check it out later.

How do you get diagnosed with CFS?

David: A diagnosis requires at least 3 months of symptoms. You need three months of symptoms, without another better explanation for why you have those symptoms.

You need to have the three following symptoms:

Debilitating Fatigue: Severe tiredness that worsens with physical or mental exertion and is not relieved by rest.

Post-Exertional Malaise (PEM): A delayed worsening of symptoms (often 12–48 hours later) following minor physical or mental effort.

Unrefreshing Sleep: Disturbed sleep, waking up feeling exhausted or stiff, or insomnia.

And you should have at least two or three of the following symptoms:

Brain fog

Skin problems

Digestive issues

Chronic pain

Muscle and joint pain

Sore throat

Problems with thermoregulation

Swollen lymph nodes

Flu like symptoms

Orthstatic problems (you get dizzy)

You also need to get a bunch of blood tests and urine tests to rule out other things. You may wish to see a neurologist, rheumatologist or a sleep specialist to rule out other issues.

To a certain extent it is a diagnosis of exclusion.

And so that is what we did. We diagnosed it after two+ years of poor health. Don’t forget that I used to be fit, healthy and quite strong. Ps: strength is a skill, not just a muscle.

***

The actual causes for my health problems  were mostly things like interference and attacks by cell towers and satellites. And I got worn out by other stuff too. Things like the trip to Europe and the USA. And things like too much noise, and plenty of disruption to my sleep. As you well know. I already talked about that stuff earlier.

***

But at the time I felt that glandular fever might have caused it, perhaps indirectly. That was one of my favourite theories.

I thought that maybe I had had glandular fever back in my final year of high school (or a different virus, I did get sick a few times in my final year of school). And then I didn’t get enough rest or recuperation once I’d had it. And that is supposed sometimes to cause ongoing issues. What do I mean by “not enough rest and recuperation”? What I mean is that I had exams, got engaged, had my overseas trip (USA/Europe), worked too hard in my first year university summer holidays, and that I didn’t sleep much during my time living in the Hanson Street apartments (it was my year of “no sleep”), and that this caused me to experience problems. Or at least something like all of that was my theory at the time, that I didn’t get enough rest, and that it made the glandular fever “stick” somehow, or otherwise stay active. Anyway, that was one of my theories as to why I was so unwell.

I also had experienced some “inklings” of health issues back in 7th form too (waves of fatigue, which I had reported to my GP, as mentioned elsewhere). And lastly I also had blood tests to check for glandular fever antibodies, which came back positive. And so this suggested that glandular fever might have been present or otherwise part of the problem.

**

Next, I want to talk about etiology.

“Etiology refers to the scientific study of causation, or the origination of a disease or condition. It identifies the specific root causes, risk factors, or pathogens that lead to a particular health issue, answering the fundamental question of why an illness or abnormal condition occurs.”

What is the etiology of CFS? At least on paper?

Back then, when I read about CFS, there was no proper or suitable explanation for what causes CFS or why it happens. It was unexplained. Or not explained well enough to be satisfying. There was no proper etiology. 

To me it seemed like a label without a clear explanation of why you’re sick. This will be a big part of my story.

I felt at the time that the diagnosis of CFS is basically a way of saying, “you’re really unwell and we don’t know why”. “You have all of these symptoms, and we don’t know why you have them. And we don’t know what the true underlying causes of your symptoms are. And so we’re slapping this useless label on you.” And the only truly useful part of it is that it helps you to get on welfare.

Speaking of welfare, I was eligible for the sickness benefit, and so I signed up for that. Amanda was also included in that, because we were a married couple. This meant that she could keep studying even though I had dropped out and was receiving welfare.

And so I basically viewed it as a label. A label where it doesn’t tell you what is wrong, just that there is something wrong. They just put you in that category. All other actual causes have been ruled out, and you just have an empty label now. But it’s the label you have got.

****

****

A brief note on my symptoms, health and overall wellbeing in 2009, 2010, 2011

I was unwell in 2009, 2010 and 2011. I had a lot of symptoms. I’m just saying that I was sick for those three years! And that I had a lot of symptoms. But I don’t want to have to talk about it at length right now.

I’ll just come back to it later.

Sally: You don’t want to talk about it now?

David: No, I will come back to it later. I was unwell, and worse in 2009, 2010, 2011.

****

****

Anyway…

I had been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). And so I set out to fix the problem and become healthy again.

The mainstream medical approach to solving this problem was the most important one for me at the time. At the time, I still trusted doctors and I wanted to give them a chance to help me figure this out and solve it. I wanted to do it “by the book”. And so I talked to my doctor, Amanda Clarke. I asked her for help. I wanted to know “what is wrong with me”, “what are the underlying causes of it”, and “how can I recover”, aka “what can I do about it”. I talked to her about my life and all of my health problems. And I asked her to help me.

I saw Dr Amanda Clarke many times, she was my regular GP in Paraparaumu. She worked at the local free youth clinic, Kapiti Youth Support (KYS).

Sally: How did you end up seeing her?

David: The first two times I went to KYS I just needed some condoms (KYS is a free clinic, and condoms are highly subsidised under pharmac, which meant that we could save money). I think that I may have still been registered with the Victoria University Clinic at the time, but KYS was closer and it was during the holidays. We used condoms because Amanda had some nasty reactions to the birth control pill (both types of birth control pill). They made her feel very unwell (allegedly). Getting contraception via the clinic is actually much cheaper, and I wanted to save money (they give you a prescription, and then you get them from the pharmacy, for a flat rate).

And then I decided to use KYS as my main doctor’s clinic (because it was free, and closer to home, and I thought that I might need a clinic outside of the university environment). And I figured that even though I didn’t 100% like the clinic itself, that the doctors were there legitimate doctors all the same. And anyway, so I end up talking to Dr Amanda Clarke about my health problems (chronic fatigue syndrome). I saw her on the second of February, 2009 to talk about things. I really wanted to get things sorted out. I had been feeling a little bit better over summer, but I was still obviously unwell. So I asked her to help me to figure out what was wrong with me and to help me figure out how to solve it.

I told her my full story start to finish. She listened to me talk and then ordered a bunch of blood tests and referred me to a neurologist. She and I thought that it might be chronic fatigue syndrome.

I got the blood tests done. They came back and were fine. The neurology department was reluctant to see me. And sent me a letter denying me an appointment.

I dropped out of university in March because of poor health. I spoke about this in an earlier part of my story.

I went back to her on the 17th of March. I was in the process of dropping out of university at the time. I needed a medical certificate from her to give to the university. I forget exactly what for. Maybe it was to get a refund, and therefore to preserve my scholarship for the next year (I had the “bonded merit” scholarship from the Government). And I needed another certificate for the Government welfare office (WINZ) to help me get on to the sickness benefit. I needed two medical certificates, both of which she gave me. She also told me that my blood tests had been completed, and were all totally fine.

The neurology department of Wellington Hospital had denied me an appointment. But Dr Amanda Clarke persisted in trying to get me one, and managed to get me in to see an old university friend of hers who worked in the neurology department of Wellington hospital. Technically he was a GP and not a specialist. But he was in the neurology department. He was kind of like an ersatz neurologist.

And so I saw him a while later.

I managed to sign up for the sickness benefit (which strangely enough can be a bit difficult sometimes, if you have CFS. For example, one of my friends Jesse Orchard sometimes had difficulties with his welfare benefits, and he had CFS too, allegedly).

I then saw Doctor David Waite at the neurology department of Wellington hospital. I saw him once on the first of May and once again a month or two later. And then again in August.

I saw him two times (I think). Or maybe it was three times.

We talked for a while, and I told him my whole story start to finish. He did a range of neurological tests. For example, he tested things like my eye sight and reflexes. And he ordered same more blood tests. He then prescribed me amitriptyline. His suggestion was that I take a tiny dose of amitriptyline. He told me to break the pill into pieces, and have a quarter of a pill. He told me that it was an almost “homeopathic” dose. I was supposed to take it just before bed, to “help me sleep better”. He pretended that it was a sleep boosting pill, to improve sleep quality. I didn’t need antidepressants though. I needed the truth. He knew what was causing my health problems.

I saw him a second time. The neurologist had ordered a bunch of blood tests last time. Which all came back normal. I don’t know if he ordered one or two bunches of blood tests: but they came back normal. I asked him whether or not we were going to do any scans? I wanted scans on my brain to see if there were any neurological causes for the problems I had. He told me that he didn’t think that we needed to stick my head into a brain scanner. On our second appointment, I told him that I was buying a new bed. I thought that a large, high quality bed would make my life better (it didn’t). He really wanted me to take amitriptyline. It was supposed to help me sleep at night. I was supposed to take one pill, split it apart. And take the tiniest dose. I told him that I don’t like anti depressants, and that I wasn’t depressed. And that anti depressants cause me problems. But he insisted. He told me that it was an almost “homeopathic” dose of an antidepressant and that it wouldn’t cause me problems. And it was for sleep. I wasn’t convinced. But I ended up taking it for a bit. But it didn’t do me any good (I don’t think it did me any harm either, physically given that the dosage was so low). I think I left the prescription unfilled for the longest time before even trying it at all. And after trying it for a while I quit (I don’t think that it did me any harm, I just don’t like taking anti depressants).

At the time I felt that he should have referred me up to an actual specialist, an actual neurologist. He was kind of like a “neurologist lite”. Not a proper specialist. And I wanted to see a proper specialist and to get things like brain scans done so that I could figure out what was wrong with me. But he didn’t want to send me to someone higher up in the food chain. His role was that he was a general practitioner, but also a gate keeper for the higher ups in the neurology department of Wellington Hospital. And as for all of the other tests and stuff coming back “normal”, he felt that the attitude should be one of “no news is good news”. And if we can’t find anything bad or wrong with me, then that’s good. And that if we can’t find anything wrong, then I should be grateful. But I wanted to find something wrong with me, so that I could finally know what the cause of the problems was, and therefore fix it. To me, no news wasn’t good news. I needed answers.

He also said something confusing about the story Heidi and the Swiss alps. And how maybe I needed some time in the mountains like her to recover. I think that this was a cryptic statement (how else did he know that I loved Switzerland and also the book Heidi?).

I can’t remember exactly how many visits I had to see that particular doctor. I saw him either two or three times. I have checked my medical notes, but the notes are unclear (I didn’t know that typed medical notes could be so dis-organised!)

Sally: Okay, that is fine. Don’t worry about the fact that the notes are very messy and hard to use. And that you don’t have perfect information. Just get the overall story across to me.

**

David: I want to talk to you about the book “I'm Not Crazy, I'm Just a Little Unwell: My Journey Through Chronic Fatigue Syndrome by Leigh Hatcher”.

Sally: What is it about?

David: I'll just give you the synopsis, from goodreads. Here it is:

Goodreads

"One day in January 1998, Leigh Hatcher lay down for a ten minute afternoon nap and woke two hours later feeling as if he'd been run over by a truck. Without warning, he'd plunged into a health crisis that was as devastating as it was mysterious.

One of Australia's best-known television journalists vanished overnight from people's TV screens. He fell into a wilderness of pain, exhaustion and confusion that defied medical diagnosis. Finally, after a year, the verdict came in: chronc fatigue syndrome, or CFS. An illness that many said didn't really exist at all.

In this passionate account, Leigh Hatcher describes the acute physical suffering and huge personal losses of his battle with chronic fatigue. He speaks frankly about the hurt and betrayal he felt when people questioned whether the illness was 'all in his mind'. He reveals the reserves of personal strength and faith that guided his way through the wilderness and taught him invaluable new lessons about life. And he details the thrilling discovery that unlocked his health once again. Leigh's story will bring comfort to all those suffering with CFS, and will show others how to accept, love, and support anyone who is wrestling with this 'multi-headed beast'."

One of the things that he used in that book was a glucose tolerance test, the multiple hour version. And he found a metabolic fault connected with his liver. And then to cure it he did a low GI diet with frequent meals and snacks, to regulate energy and restore his health. He recovered very quickly. (Uhhh. The book is all lies, in hindsight).

I found it in someone else's car. It was just sitting in one of the backseat pockets of Jesse Orchard's car, and I discovered it there, and so I started reading it. It was just one of those situations where you just read a few pages each time you are in the car, and end up getting interested. After a couple of car trips I found it interesting enough that I asked to borrow it, and then finished reading it. [[Jesse Orchard “had” CFS as well, and was quite sick, and unable to work and had to go on to welfare. But that’s a whole other story.]]

I then got my hopes up a bit, thinking and feeling that "this might be the answer". And so I asked my doctor to do the GTT (Glucose Tolerance Test), the multi hour version. Just like in the book.

She ordered that test for me, and I got it done. It involved going to the blood test place, getting blood drawn, then drinking a small bottle of super sugary water, and then waiting an hour, and then getting your blood sugar tested, and then waiting another hour, and getting it tested again. It was supposed to see if something was wrong. And if it was wrong, then the idea (from the book) was that I could regulate my eating according to frequent meals and snacks (every 2.5 hours) to fix my energy and health problem. Which really were quite bad.

But anyway, this thing which I put a lot of hope in turned out to not really help me at all. And I did get my hopes up quite a bit. The test didn’t come back telling me that anything was wrong. So the whole thing led to nothing.

Don’t forget that I am basically feeling like I have been hit by a bus much of the time in 2009. I’m exhausted and miserable. I can’t sleep properly, and also I’m just inexplicably cold a lot of the time too. My body just doesn’t work! I’m sicker than I was in 2007 and 2008. It’s awful.

**

And then I had some more medical appointments with Amanda Clarke. I think I saw her four times in 2009 in total. She ordered more tests. All of which came back normal. We did so many blood tests. But we weren’t really getting anywhere.

The summer of 2009/2010 wasn’t so bad. It was nice and sunny. The warm weather was doing me some good and I was feeling a little bit better. But I was still not all that well. The idea was that I should be able to return to study in 2010. And again I had lined up a slightly reduced course of study. And I was ready to get into it. And I had sorted out all of the paper work. Truth be told, I wasn’t really ready to be heading back. But I was heading back anyway.

A little while before university started I went to a prayer meeting or two, and had people pray for me. These were at a local Pentecostal church. David Orchard (I have mentioned him previously) claimed to have been miraculously healed of his chronic fatigue syndrome at a pentecostal church’s healing meeting up in Auckland, so I thought that I would try going to a similar meeting here in Kapiti. Also, my father had claimed that his knee had been “miraculously healed” at a healing meeting when he was about twenty (the story of that is that he got a cyst on his knee, and then had surgery, and then couldn’t walk after surgery, and rehabilitation was a mess, and he couldn’t bend his leg, and he always walked with a straight leg, he hobbled. And his leg would buckle sometimes. And he had lost so much muscle on that leg. He had also become somewhat depressed and was had dropped out of university, or something. But then he miraculously came right after a healing meeting. I think it was a “mind-body” issue, mediated by psychosomatic stuff. As for what caused the cyst: when I was young, he attributed the formation of the massive cyst to jumping off of sand cliffs at the beach, or falling down gulleys and that started the base injury, and it grew from there. IMHO, I think those two incidents are part of it, but that another major issue was that he ran too much; overuse. Also, the surgery involved scraping a lot of cartilage out along with the goo. Furthermore, this ruined his sporting ambitions. He wanted to be on the international junior representative team for NZ table tennis, and was an avid runner). And I thought that if it had worked for my father and David Orchard that I would be foolish not to try. Also, I was often praying to ask God to heal me and restore my health to me. I had no idea why I was sick.

Anyway, the deal with Pentecostal miraculous healing is that you have to have faith. Faith first, healing later. So they prayed for me, and I tried to have faith. I tried very hard to have faith that I would be healed. And for a while I felt that things were looking up. I tried to trick myself into thinking that if I just had enough faith, that I might recover. It’s sad in hindsight, but such is life.

There was a verse about needing faith to be able to be healed, but I can’t remember what it was. I think that it may have been  “And the prayer _offered in faith_ will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven”. The idea is that you have to have faith before you are healed. And if you don’t have enough faith, you won’t be healed.

I had also had some Alexander Technique lessons in the few weeks before term started, which greatly relieved tension in my neck and back. Those were with a woman by the name of Teresa Neches.

But anyway, I went back to university. I did this even though I wasn’t feeling 100% well. I  convinced myself into thinking I was well enough to be back at university (because of the Christian/pentecostal healing meeting thing; I had to have faith, remember?). But I basically wasn’t managing with university right from day one. I skipped classes right from the start, I didn’t manage to get the right textbooks. Everything was disorganised. I had issues with my wrist as well. And then the symptoms kinda hit again. Well, more of them. It happened about 6 weeks into term. I got hit with proper waves of fatigue, feelings of weakness. And a generalised feeling of wrongness (this was probably the stuff they do which messes with your posture - I think that they call it “stress him”, or “squash him” - but I actually don’t much care what they call it, it’s daft anyway, and it is horrible). They tightened up my back a bit more. I just felt bad again. This happened at the start of the mid term break. I thought it over for a bit. And then I decided to quit. By the way, when I was studying, it was just part time study. Only two papers. I wanted to get as much of a refund as possible. And the earlier you quit, the more of a refund you get. And so I just quit. It’s not like I was coping anyway. I had to admit that my case of chronic fatigue syndrome hasn’t resolved itself, and I was still unwell. And then I went back on to the sickness benefit. Amanda was included on the sickness benefit as well (she was in her honours year).

And it was quite sad that I had to quit. But when the symptoms came back (properly) in the mid term break, then I knew that I hadn’t recovered. I knew that I was still unwell. I had to admit to myself that having faith, or believing that I had been given supernatural healing or something like it, hadn’t worked. I had to acknowledge that it hadn’t worked. I hadn’t been healed. I hadn’t been healed by God. You are supposed to “claim the healing” and act like you’ve been healed. And you’re supposed to “claim the healing” before you have actually recovered. And so I had tried to tell myself that I had already been healed, before I knew that I was well. But then after I dropped out of university I had to admit that it wasn’t true. I was still sick and I hadn’t been healed.

I wasn’t really well enough to manage in the first place. And it was wishful thinking to believe that I was well enough.

I apologise for the paragraph just above, I know that it is a little bit clunky and also repetitive, and there is a lot of religious stuff. But I used to be very religious. And perhaps repetition is the best way to get things across. So I’m leaving it in there

Sally: So you believed in instantaneous supernatural miraculous healing?

David: Yes. I did.

Also, I used to pray very often, asking God  to heal me of my health problems. And I used to wonder why he didn’t heal me of my heath problems. It didn’t make sense to me at all.

**

David: And that is how I dropped out of university for the second time.

Sally: That is really sad. You had to drop out again.

David: Yes, it was horrible. I just couldn’t manage.

I was unwell, and it was miserable. I just couldn’t do anything in life.

The things that mattered to me, and the feelings of forward momentum that I had were gone. My intelligence was such an important part of my identity, and so was my academic performance and my ability to get good marks. 

**

And now let us talk about 2010.

I didn’t feel well in 2010. I had lots of symptoms. I don’t feel like going into it.

Sally: please do tell tell me about your symptoms. What was your health like. That’s what we are here for after all.

David: Yes okay. I’ll tell you about my symptoms.

I had all sorts of symptoms.

I experienced fatigue.

I was exhausted, tired all of the time.

I had very poor sleep quality.

I had post exertional malaise.

I had back pain.

I had bad digestion.

I had the full range of cfs symptoms.

I had brain fog, temperature dysregulation.

Food sensitivities: gluten intolerance (but I think they might have done that with satellites, giving me symptoms that correlated with consumption of gluten containing grains)

Flu-like Feelings: chills, and night sweats.

And night time hungry attacks.

I felt unwell, and exhausted and I was often unnaturally cold. I had massive problems with trying to stay warm. I think that they kept blasting me with cold rays, but I can’t prove it. The hot/cold thing was actually a huge issue. I had found that the only way to try stay warm was to light the fireplace.

I just wasn’t that well.

It is really difficult to explain it properly, because it was three years worth of symptoms. But I just wasn’t well. I was exhausted and suffered from debilitating fatigue. I had back problems and digestive problems (very hard dry stool, and I was very constipated, it was horrible). And I didn’t have high quality sleep. I was just very unwell. My life was hard. And I had post exertional malaise. The whole situation was horrible. The debilitating fatigue was the worst bit, the inability to exercise or to benefit from it was the second biggest problem (I needed exercise, but couldn’t get it). My back problems were the third biggest problem. And fourthly my digestion was a massive problem (I had stool digging into my abdomen). I was pretty miserable. The whole situation was pretty debilitating.

But on the whole it was pretty bad. Can you just take it as a given that I was unwell, but that perhaps I won’t do a very good job of explaining it?

Sally: Sure, that sounds okay to me. You were unwell.

Here is an example. My back was so bad that getting together with my friends in 2010 to play Catan was a problem. This is at the age of 21. I actually used to get back problems so bad that I would start sweating.  My spine would hurt, I would experience strain and stress in my back chest and spine, and it would be so bad that I would start sweating profusely sweat. It was horrible. It got even worse when I was 22. 

Sally: You couldn’t even play board games? That’s appalling!? They must have been doing so much to your back to make that happen. They must have been doing so much stuff to your back with the satellites and cell towers?

David: I guess so. 

They also did it with church attendance. I couldn’t just sit in church to listen to sermons and listen to music. They gave me back problems and breathing issues. I had pain at t1 and t2. I also used to get “mid back pain” which was just at the back of the bottom of the rib cage, from trying to sit upright. And also I used to get freezing cold while sitting there. And had issues with circulation. And I had a freezing cold nose, and fingers. I had circulation issues. And had to keep on taking off clothes and putting them back on again. My warm jacket I mean. Because I would be freezing cold, and then I’d put on my jacket. And then I’d get hot and prickly, and sweat and be too warm. And then take it off again. I couldn’t sing in church, because of the back and breathing issues. My back hurt. And I had to keep on going to get water from the kitchen mid service. Sometimes I would take a cup of water into the service with me, because I couldn’t stay cool or hydrated. I was always popping out to the kitchen for water, or the bathroom to use the toilet. Because I always needed either water or the toilet. Weird.

Someone eventually installed a water dispenser outside the kitchen, with paper cups. So that people didn’t have to raid the kitchen. And I always wondered if that was put there for me.

I couldn’t even just go to church and sit through a service. It’s crazy! I eventually had to give up on attendance. I can’t remember which year this was. I think it was 2010? But maybe even there was a bit of it in 2009. In 2011 I had stopped going? I wish I could remember exactly when things happened.

I fought to keep on attending. But I had to give up eventually.

**

David: I want to talk a little bit more about my doctor Amanda Clarke.

In 2010, she started to get weird about giving me medical certificates for chronic fatigue syndrome. It was odd. I needed those certificates for getting welfare so that Amanda and I could afford to eat and pay the bills. Also, she wanted to push me off to a new doctor. She kept on telling me to get second opinions from other doctors at the clinic. She didn’t want to give me more medical certificates. She seemed to be worried about what WINZ would think.

My point of view was that she was my doctor, and that it was her responsibility to do her job and give me medical certificates for the sickness benefit. And that also it was her responsibility to help me to recover.

She claimed that she was getting frustrated, and also she seemed frustrated in her demeanour. And you can see it in the medical notes too.

Another thing is that she wanted me to go to a psychologist to do CBT. I wasn’t happy about that. She kept on suggesting it. The idea behind CBT is that they persuade you to think that your thoughts about your health are just “limiting beliefs” and that you just need to do exercise and be conditioned to believe that you can do it. Anyway, I didn’t want to see a psychologist. Psychologists are nonsensical, and also to see one would suggest that I was suffering from an illness with psychological causes, not physical causes, but I knew that I was suffering from a physical illness. 

And later she wanted me to take amitriptyline (again). But it doesn’t make sense for me to take anti depressants. I wasn’t depressed, I was physically unwell. And also anti depressants make me violently suicidal, and I had told both Amanda Clarke and David Waite this. And to suggest anti depressants is to imply that someone is mentally ill (even if you claim that the anti depressants are for a different cause, which Amanda Clarke did). This wouldn’t be the only time that my doctors have done that by the way. When later on they prescribed nortryptaline, they said it was for back pain. I had gone in for back pain and chronic pain, and they gave me antidepressants, telling me that they were ideal for reducing back pain. But that was in 2013.

Anyways, I kept seeing her. For multiple visits.

Next, at a later appointment, she told me to try amitriptyline yet again and got annoyed at me for not doing it. And again tried to get me to see a psychologist. The psychologist would have been funded by WINZ (psychologists are expensive!).

She also kept on pushing me to increase my levels of physical activity. As though that was what I needed. But physical activity made me worse. Much worse. And also, I had read things online about chronic fatigue syndrome which said that to increase activity and to “push through” can be really unhealthy. It was quite controversial online.

**

I went to another appointment on the 4th October 2010 (sorry if this seems weird to mention individual doctors appointments), but I’m just picking out entries from my medical notes).

And then she told me to take amitriptalyne yet again. She was really pushing it. Which was frustrating! Why should they be pushing anti depressants and psychologists visits on someone with a physical illness and physical symptoms. The implication is that she was suggesting that my health problems had no physical basis, and that there was therefore no reason for me to be unwell, and that therefore the causes were psychological. Perhaps that it was a psychosomatic illness. __This becomes an important part of the overall story__ (my father’s attitude was similar by the way - that the causes were psychological, and/or all in my head, and that I just needed to go for a “good run” or a swim).

Sally: So your doctor basically told you that it was a psychological problem, not a physical problem? What I mean is that did she say it without saying it?

David: Yes, she said it without saying it, that it was psychological in causation and origin. It obviously wasn’t. It was caused by cell towers and satellites. Not that I knew it at the time.

Also, she was aware of the actual underlying causes. I.e. satellites and cell towers. But wasn’t willing to tell me.

My father drove me to one of the appointments at KYS. I didn’t have transport from home to the doctor’s clinic. I am only mentioning that so that people can see and understand that my father was still a significant part of my life. And that we still saw one another. And that he was still part of ongoing conversations with me about my health.

We both sat at the clinic talking about my health. And he was dismissive of my problems. But I was still talking to him about my health… he just acted like there was nothing massively wrong.

He asked me, what do you *feel* just sitting there. He basically knew what was wrong with me. But he felt that if there was no symptoms hitting me then, that it didn’t really matter. I think he was out of touch. And he actually could have just told me, right then and there.

And then made a metaphor, or analogy. About children and putting toys away. Which I think was a cryptic statement. I’ll flesh it out now. There was a child there, playing with the toys. And his mother was telling the child to put the toys away. And he was dragging his feet.

And we discussed whether it was better for the mother to help the child, or to order the child to do it. Or to put the toys away herself. I think we may have concluded that it was better to just help the child.

I think that he was just hinting at something. I’m not sure how important it was. But I think that it might have been a cryptic statement.

**

Then I ended up seeing Dr Peter Roberts. This was in mid October, 2010, I think.

I saw him because a friend mentioned him (Jesse and David Orchard). Apparently he was absolutely the best doctor around for CFS. He knew all about it (or so I was told). I wasn’t convinced. But he was the only doctor who took an interest in it. He was the doctor who knew best about CFS in the greater Wellington region. He was the closest thing to a specialist there was. Also, he worked at Wellington hospital in the outpatient clinic. I will repeat that, he worked at Wellington Hospital at the outpatient clinic. Which meant that I had to travel from Raumati Beach in Paraparaumu to Wellington Hospital in Newtown,  Wellington, which is about 60 minutes away by car (depending on traffic) or about 2-3 hours away by public transportation. So anyone who asks me, “why didn’t you go to the hospital?”, the answer is that I did go to the hospital. I saw three doctors at Wellington hospital. And I spent one night at  Bowen Hospital for a sleep study (Bowen Hospital is a private hospital in the Wellington Area). Btw, the outpatient wing of the Wellington hospital is just through the lobby and then turn left. The respiratory clinic is to your right when you go through the front door, so is neurology. The part of the hospital where Amanda’s Nana went when she had a stroke was a bit deeper into the hospital.

And so my doctor got me in to see him. She had to try multiple times to get me in there to see Dr Peter Roberts in the outpatient clinic.

__I told my whole story start-to-finish.__

He wasn’t actually all that great (I think that he was and is a dishonest and bad guy all along - more about that later).

He suggested that I start taking vitamin D. And that I had to get more sun, for the vitamin D. He thought that the Europe trip meant that I was behind on sunlight and vitamin D.

And I told him about all sorts of random symptoms, like waking up at night freezing cold, and ravenously hungry. And only if I ate could I warm back up. I also told him all about the thermregulation symptoms.  Oh wait, I told him about tons and tons of symptoms and problems.In almost forgot to mention that. At length. I explained things at length. And fatigue, exhaustion, sleep quality and post exertional malaise were the main issues. But anyway, I’m now talking about the random other symptoms. And then I will talk about GET (sort of) (Graded Exercise Therapy).

The waking up at night symptom. Where I wake up and I experience massive hunger, and I’m freezing cold, and I can’t sleep. This happened often. Now he wasn’t sure what caused that. His theory was that the reason I woke up at night like that, shivering and cold, was blood sugar. And so he suggested that I check blood sugar, but that I do it frequently and log the information in spreadsheet. So that I can see if there is a correlation or connection between blood sugar and symptoms. He gave me a prescription for an accucheck reader, some testing strips and a sharp lance thing that clicks. And I did what I was told, faithfully keeping records. To send to him for analysis later (I sent them in an email I think).

He also had me do blood tests, but nothing came of it. And he also asked me to send him a letter or email, instead of coming in for an appointment. To give him some updates. I must have seen him 3-4 times. And tbh, going into Wellington hospital just to see a guy about cfs who wasn’t even any good, it wasn’t great. He was supposed to be “the guy”. He was supposed to be like a specialist in cfs. But he sucked.

What else? He (and Amanda Clarke) wanted me to increase my physical activity levels. Even when I felt bad. And had symptoms. And even when it caused “post exertional malaise”. We will talk about that now.

There was this theory at the time that the way to “fight” and to recover from CFS was to do “Graded Exercise Therapy”. The way that that worked was that you set a level of exercise that you need to do. And you do that for 2-4 weeks. And then you bump it up a bit. And do that for 2-4 weeks and so forth. Until you’ve improved fitness and health. And this was to by accompanied by CBT. CBT (cognitive behavioural is a psychological approach that helps you to recognise and reassess psychological limitations). I wasn’t happy about this. Because these ignored that I had physical symptoms. And pretended it was just a psychosomatic case. Furthermore, there was advice online which suggested that the best approach might be “pacing” and keeping records of symptoms.

My grandparents drove me to one or two of these appointments, to see Dr Peter Roberts (the “specialist” for CFS). This shows that they knew I was fighting to recover. And they could have just told me what was wrong. I even stayed the night at their place before my appointment. I was actually struggling with basic things like attending appointments at that time. I was unwell! I also missed an appointment with Doctor Peter Roberts due to having the flu. And had to rebook it. But I think the “flu” was actually induced. Actually, it was an appointment with the respiratory clinic and Doctor Alister Neill. That comes later.

My grandparents even put me on their church’s prayer list, so that people would pray for my recovery from CFS.

My father also drove me to one or two of the appointment, to see Dr Roberts. This means that my father could have told me what was wrong and why I was unwell.

**

Sleep specialist and sleep study

Next I saw a sleep specialist. His name was Dr Alister Neill. Actually, he is a professor. I sometimes don’t know which title to use, professor or doctor. Professor Alister Neill is a Respiratory Medicine specialist in Crofton Downs, Wellington, New Zealand. But he actually works as a sleep specialist. I had been trying to get an appointment with one for a while, so that I could rule out sleep problems. Or perhaps figure out what was wrong with me. I ended up seeing him, and then getting a sleep study done. He is a fairly prominent specialist in the field. I had an appointment to see him, and we then had the overnight sleep study, and I then saw him again for a short consultation afterwards. At least this is how I remember it.

Here is his bio, pulled from a medical website (Research Gate):

“Alister Neill is a Professor in the Department of Medicine (Wellington), University of Otago and directs the WellSleep Centre. My interests include the Epidemiology & ethnic distribution of obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) in New Zealand, relationship to cardiovascular disease, evaluation of new treatment technologies, sleep assessment pathways, risks of drowsiness, energy balance in sleep, insomnia, provision of home non-invasive ventilation for respiratory failure.”

I had wanted to see a sleep specialist for ages. I had always felt that the sleep thing may have been massive. Because my sleep was “badly broken” and I didn’t know why? I hadn’t slept properly on a consistent basis since 2006, and I felt that this might have been one of the biggest contributing factors to my declining health. (Also, I had another problem involving waking up and being freezing cold, and unable to get back to sleep until I ate. Which was odd.) I really thought that the sleep study may have held the answers for why I was unwell and what to do about it.

The overnight sleep study was at Bowen Hospital. The sleep study itself involved glueing electrodes to my head to watch my brain while I slept.

My recollections of the sleep study are that I couldn’t sleep that night. The way I remember it is that I was awake all night and I just couldn’t sleep. I tried having a snack, because that sometimes helped me sleep. But that didn’t work. I alternated between trying to sleep and giving up to listen to music. And then they came to collect my apparatus and to unstick the electrodes from my head. They did this at about 6 am. I then went to sleep. I don’t recall sleeping at all during the study itself.

I told them that I didn’t think that they managed to get any good information. But they told me that they had collected a bit of information, and that I had fallen asleep somewhere along the way for a bit. And they measured my sleep then. They said that everything was fine. I think that they may have been lying.

I did have some moments of resting quietly in bed where perhaps I did get some sleep. This was close to the end of the study. If I did fall asleep, then I didn’t fall asleep until the early hours of the morning. And only for a little bit. I hardly slept. And to be honest, I don’t remember sleeping at all! I don’t remember even 5 minutes of sleep before they took the rig and all of the electrodes off. So I don’t know how exactly they got any good information from it… I think that they may have been having me on a little bit (aka being dishonest). But I actually think that I didn’t sleep. And that they lied.

But in the end, the report didn’t show that I had any major problems. Or I wasn’t told about any major problems anyway. I didn’t read the report itself. I just had a quick meeting with the doctor a few weeks later. The meeting was short, I think. But he seemed not to have much of a way to help me. Note: my memories of this whole situation are pretty hazy. I don’t think that I did the full “presentation” where I told him my whole story. Which was a mistake.

Perhaps unrelated: my medical notes have a note in there about ecg palpitations. Strangely enough, these were not mentioned to me in person, but I’m unsure if it is important or not.

Amanda’s Nana drove me to the appointment to see the sleep specialist. This shows that she knew what was wrong and could have just told me what was wrong. But she chose not to.

A slight digression here, but it would have been appropriate for her to have told me what was wrong with my health. I was a part of their family after all. I had married into it. They treated me as family and welcomed me in. I could talk about this later. By the way, my health issues were often a topic of conversation when I was with Amanda’s mother and Nana. And I used to see her family quite a bit more around 2007-2011 when Amanda and I first were married. But eventually I got too sick and decrepit for guests and socialising. Also, I went to Christmas with Amanda’s side of the family, not mine.

And that is enough for now.

**

David: I just want to make a brief mention of the fact that I had some trouble with welfare, the sickness benefit, and having my doctor write up medical certificates. It was sometimes a problem. And my doctor/s insinuated that my rather severe health problems were psychological in origin rather than being physical problems. The prescribed anti depressants, exercise (even though I experienced PEM) and wanted to hire a psychologist for me. And as such, my doctor Amanda Clarke was increasingly reluctant to give me medical certificates to be able to get the sickness benefit.

I should also mention once again that my health problems were caused by satellites and cell towers. And that my doctors and physiotherapists knew it. And could have told me at any point. As could have my friends, family or church. Which covers pretty much everyone in my life.

**

Physiotherapy

David: Now I will talk about physiotherapy.

Sally: Okay, that sounds good.

Why did you want to get physiotherapy?

What sort of problems did you have?

David: I had back problems. I had back pain. I had tightness in my neck, shoulders and upper back. And overall I just felt kind of constrained. I can’t describe it. But mostly it was the back pain. I had pain in my spine (maybe around T2/T3, I can’t recall) and also “mid back pain”.

David: I saw a number of physiotherapists over the years.

I saw one at Victoria University Physio back in 2007, who I have already talked about. We don’t need to talk about him again.

I saw Lesley Unka at Lesley Unka Physio at the Raumati Beach Shops, on Margaret Road. That was a small privately owned practise staffed by a woman and her receptionist.

I saw three physiotherapists at TBI Health Kapiti. Yes, three! I went to the clinic on Rimu Road. The name TBI stands for “The Back Institute”.

And I saw one physiotherapist at Team Medical at Coastlands. His name is Nathan Scott. He was our church’s worship leader.

And I saw two physiotherapists at Willis Street Physio. But that was in 2012 and 2013, and won’t be covered in this part of the story.

Many years later I saw a few more physiotherapists and occupational therapists who visited me in my home in Princeton Road. I will not be talking about that part of my story on this page. But I hope to talk about them later. Their names are Shelley Fox, Nicola Dunford and Debbie Little.

Sally: It sounds like you saw quite a few physiotherapists.

Why did you end up seeing so many of them?

David: Well, it’s not like I saw them all at once. I just kind of saw them over time.

I had chronic ongoing back problems along with my other health problems. And I kept on trying to fix these problems, but without much success.

I will tell you more about it.

Sally: Go for it, I would love to know more.

David: I saw Lesley Unka at Lesley Unka Physio at the Raumati Beach Shops, on Margaret Road. That was a small privately owned practise staffed by a woman and her receptionist. I went in there complaining of back pain. I saw her perhaps 2-5 times in total. I paid with my own money (it wasn’t publicly funded or paid for by ACC).

Ultimately, the treatment wasn’t successful. She did some mobilisation of my ribs and vertebrae via my back, some manipulation (iirc, which perhaps I don’t), some therapeutic ultrasound, and some postural taping.

I didn’t feel any better and so I stopped going.

I think that my back tightened back up in between visits. And she mentioned it, asking “Your back tightens up between visits. Do you sit at the computer all day? Is that what causes the tightening of your back? What causes it?”. But I do have to offer a disclaimer, which is that I can’t remember if Lesley Unka is the physiotherapist with whom I had that conversation, given that it was a long time ago.

In hindsight, the problems were caused by satellites and cell towers. And she didn’t address these underlying issues (all of the cell tower and satellite stuff). But then again she may not have known that I was being harmed electronically via my nervous system. And I certainly didn’t know about it. I don’t want to make a massive fuss about this one at the moment.

Note: Some years after this, Amanda actually blackened the name of this physiotherapist by lying and telling me that she was married to the man who ran the computer shop on the same street, who was arrested for being a pedophile (Ian Mead). This happened a few years later. I’m not sure why Amanda lied. This physiotherapist was NOT in a relationship with the pedophile who owned the computer shop.

Note 2: My overall feeling of this physio is that she isn’t half bad as a person and tried to help. And is a competent physio. But may not have known that the cell towers or satellites were a factor? Don’t over think it.

*

TBI Health (aka The Back Institute)

I saw three physiotherapists at TBI Health Kapiti. Yes, three! I went to the clinic on Rimu Road. The name TBI stands for “The Back Institute”.

Sally: Tell me about that. How did you end up going to TBI? And how did you end up seeing three physiotherapists?

David: My general practitioner, Dr Amanda Clarke, recommended them to me. She sent me there. At an appointment I told her that I needed a physiotherapist because I was getting back pain. And she suggested that I try “The Back Institute” (TBI).

I told her that I tried a different physio first, but that it hadn’t helped. I also explained to her that I was getting upper back pain (somewhere around the thoracic spine) and that my “mid back” hurt (somewhere about the location of the serratus posterior). She asked me to try to touch my toes, and I couldn’t. And then she sent me there, telling me that she likes their philosophy of “it’s your back, and you have to take care of it and be responsible for it”. And so I went to TBI. I don’t remember whether or not there was any paperwork associated with being sent there. There may have been. This might sound strange to you, but I was trying to do things “by the book”. And I wanted to work with and trust my doctor.

And so I went to TBI. And this time I found a way to get ACC to pay for it (I sort of strained my back a bit picking up a storm grating). And they placed me in front of a woman physiotherapist. She then set to work. She asked me why I was there, and I explained. And I also told her a bit about my overall health situation.

She told me that I needed to loosen up my thoracic spine. And so here is what we did. She mobilised my upper back and then did some manipulations (crunched and cracked it a bit). She also gave me some exercises to do.

She prescribed bird-dogs, seated thoracic extensions, seated spine twists, and supine lying on a rolled up towel.

I did these exercises faithfully. But every one of them made me feel worse (even bird dogs). Not better.

I probably should have quit straight away. But instead I doubled down and kept on doing the exercises. I also kept on going to the physio. Neither the exercises nor the physiotherapy worked.

We had multiple sessions.

After a while, I confronted her slightly and told her that the exercises and treatment weren’t working. And that my back is just as bad whenever I go to her.

Then she was like… I could keep on doing the mips (manipulations; this is where they crunch your back a bit after “mobilising” the joints) but it isn’t doing much. So I don’t know. She told me a story, she told me that she had fallen off a horse when she was young, and that this hurt her back, and that even though she had treatment and did rehabilitation, she still had pain. And that pain was just a part of reality and life and she had to get used to it. Her attitude was that not all back problems are solvable.

So anyway, I kept on going and I kept doing the exercises. But we stopped doing manipulation. And then I ended up seeing a second physio there, and then a third. I ended up just explaining things to them, but nothing came of it.

I just remained a man with back problems.

The exercises actually made me worse. They just plain hurt me. The exercises hurt me. The seated thoracic extensions and supine lying on a rolled up towel hurt me in particular. I think it actually was bad for me to do these. It just hurt my back, and gave me symptoms. I think that the thoracic spine was “jammed up” due to remote control muscle tightening and then when I did the exercises to loosen things it just tried to loosen something jammed tight. Which hurt me. Laying on the towel, I was down for a minute or two on the towel (on the ground). Either way, the spine at about t1 and t2 was already sore and easy to aggravate.

Sally: How can bird dogs be a problem for you?

David: I know right? How can bird-dogs be bad for me!? That is what the physio said. When she said it, I was like, “Weird isn’t it. And I was like. They don’t work. And they actually make me feel worse. The make my spine hurt. It sucks.. they don’t work!”

But I told her that the exercises do hurt me, and they aggravate the pain in my spine. She also told me that bird-dogs are just about the easiest exercise that she had. And that she can’t do anything easier than that. And for me that was disheartening.

And she then said that I should try being on all fours on the ground and just extending an arm instead of doing an arm and a leg at the same time. And then I tried that. But that didn’t get me anywhere.

And I think that’s it.

Their advice made me worse. 

One more note:

I went in for multiple sessions. And they would like… mobilise and manipulate (crunch) stuff. And then it would feel better for a bit. But within a little bit, it would feel bad again. It became compressed again, I guess maybe they tightened it by means of satellite and cell tower. It may have been this physiotherapist who asked me, “do you spend a ton of time on the computer between sessions, and is this what causes your back to compress again?” But I honestly don’t remember which Physio said that.

****

****

The next physiotherapist I saw was Nathan Scott at Scott Physiotherapy and Wellness. His physical address and location was at Team Medical at Coastlands Mall. Team Medical is a franchise chain of medical centres.

Sally: Another physio? Why did you keep on seeing more physiotherapists? Were they all back to back?

David: Yes, I saw another physiotherapist. I saw them over a period of time. I saw them because I still had back problems. The physiotherapists hadn’t solved the problems with my back, so I kept on going to physiotherapists. And no they weren’t all back-to-back, of course not. They were over a period of time.

Why did I go to him in particular? 

It is because we used to go to the same church. And so I thought he might be worth a shot.

Just a little bit more about that. He was our worship leader and also the MC (aka service host) for church services at the ccc. His father (Bruce Scott) had previously been the chief elder and main pastor at the church. I did feel that perhaps he might be trustworthy. He seemed like a safe option as far as physiotherapists go, given that he was from the same church as me and worked out of the same premises as Team Medical at the local mall. I had stopped going to the CCC by then because I was too physically unwell to attend.

 

Just a couple more things: a while before I went to him for physiotherapy, I had wanted to get into doing music at the front of the church, because they needed a guitarist. And Nathan was part of that, and gave me some sheet music to practise from (at least I think that it was him). It never really worked out because I was too unwell to go to practices, and I wasn’t really well enough to practise guitar (it hurt my neck and shoulder). And another thing is that he had known that I was getting sicker and sicker. To the point that I had lost the ability to attend church.

Anyway, Nathan Scott. Where do I start?

Firstly, I told him about my problems. I told him that I had CFS and how that had developed, I told him that I had back problems and problems with my feet as well. I told him that I had seen a couple of other physios. I asked him to help me.

Secondly, he gave me some exercises on a swiss ball. He had me starting out sitting on the ball, and then had me roll forwards on the ball, and then roll backwards in such a manner that I ended up lying on the ball. I ended up in a back bend over the ball. I was also supposed to spread my arms out to the sides to stretch my pecs; letting them drape over the sides of the ball. This exercise and stretch was supposed to stretch my back, neck and chest. It wasn’t very good for me though, and resulted in a couple of weeks of increased symptoms (I had CFS and a bad back, remember?). I felt very wiped out. He then charged me $100 for the session, and $60 for the swiss ball. Overall, it didn’t do me any good. And I never did the exercises again, and I never used the swiss ball again.

Thirdly, I went back to see him a second time. I told him that I wanted to figure out a way to stop my feet hurting (I had foot pain related to the cell towers and satellites). And he prescribed orthotics to me. I also had to buy a new pair of shoes to go with the orthotics (apparently you need special or fancy shoes to have the orthotics fit into them). This set me back $400 ($100 for his time, $80 for the orthotics, and $220 for the shoes. I had never paid that much for shoes in my life by the way). And it didn’t do me any good. I actually kept wearing those shoes with the orthotics for ages. And they were very bad for me. There is a lot more story to tell there (when it comes to shoes and gait) but I don’t think we’ll ever tell that full story. But at the end of the day the shoes with the orthotics were bad.

This might sound silly to you. But I kept on using them, because I thought that I needed to use them. It wasn’t nice. And it wasn’t good.

His story was that I over pronated my feet when I walked. He claimed that I had a bad walking gait, and that I over pronated my feet, and that I needed special shoes and orthotics.

Fourthly, he also suggested that he could cure my CFS with supplements. But that it would be expensive. He told me that he sold supplements.

Lastly, he could very easily have just told me what was wrong with me. Or at the very least not harmed me or made me worse. All I needed was some truth. The real problem (as always) was massive satellite and cell tower based harm, caused over the long term. He could have just told me this. And there were actually exercises and movements that could have been useful for me, even without the giving me the full truth. And one more thing, he knew that I had had such serious health issues that I had become incapable of going to church.

Note 1: I had in the past volunteered to help with the church’s youth group. And at one point I had hoped to join the church’s worship band to play guitar. But I struggled with practising and learning the songs on guitar due to back pain and some problems and issues when it came to being able to focus.

Note 2: I want to mention that I gave him a recap of my whole story. Or at least I think I did. The computer tells me that I did. And it would have been in line with my character to tell him. I just can’t remember exactly. It was 16 years ago, after all.

**

Disclaimer:

I also must offer a second disclaimer, which is that I can’t recall which physio I went to when. The truth is that I have forgotten a lot of details from the past. I think the order is correct. But might have seen TBI for a session or two, and given up. Then gone to Raumati Road physio. And then back to TBI.

I feel that the narratives given above are a good enough representation of events.

****

****

I went to seven medical professionals over those three years. Plus a couple more, but those don’t really count.

I saw multiple other medical professionals before those seven (from 2006-2008), and some more medical professionals in 2012 and 2013 (two at Willis Street Physio, and one doctor at team medical, and two new doctors at kys, and one new doctor at Raumati Road Surgery iirc. I remember Gayle Snyder, Ruth Brown, Diane Carter and two more; one was a highly experienced male physio at Willis Street Physio, the other was a woman doctor at KYS. Perhaps the other doctor at KYS was Dr Sue Wilson).

*****

*****

David: I think that’s enough about medical professionals for now. Maybe we should move on to a new topic.

Sophia: Okay

Sophia: Where were your friends in all of this? Did they offer you any good advice, support or guidance? Any help of any kind?

David: That is a good point. I should probably talk about that.

Sophia: And on that note, who were your friends at the time? Who did you spend time with? Could you tell me about your social life?

David: Hi Sophia, you haven’t spoken up much on these calls have you? Yes, of course I can talk to you about my social life.

Sophia: No, I haven’t spoken much on these calls. Not yet anyway. But I was curious as to why your friends hadn’t said anything to you about your terrible health, or let you know about the horrors of the system. And I also thought that we ought to talk about your social life in general over these three years (2009, 2010, 2011).

David: What was my social life like in 2009? Hmmm. I wasn’t very well in 2009, I was sicker in 2009 than I was in 2008. And I have to admit that my social life wasn’t great. But I guess I should say that it revolved around church and Sunday lunch. And spending time with my flatmates. And then I guess I’ll talk about my social life in 2010 and 2011.

David: Actually, I would like to mention one thing just quickly. This takes us back to 2007 and 2008. We spent a fair bit of time at Amanda’s grandparents house at 46 Dale Road, Raumati South. And we also spent some weekends at Amanda’s mother’s place at 5 Weka Road, Raumati Beach. And I’m talking about 2007 and 2008 here. Both of these places are in Paraparaumu by the way. And sometimes my/our friends came over. For example, Amanda and I had our engagement party at her mother’s place in March (?) 2007. People like Jesse, Nathan, Aaron and Philip came to that. And Amanda and I had Jesse and Nathan over to visit to socialise once or twice while we were staying at Amanda’s grandparent’s place at Dale Road. And one more thing, I went to family dinner night quite a lot with Amanda, her mother, and Amanda’s grandparents, and I think some of her aunties and uncles. We might talk about this later. Family dinner was at Dale Road, and then later it was held at their place on Guildford Drive (they moved house). I’ll talk more about my in-laws later, I spent a fair bit of time with them early on, especially Amanda’s mother and grandparents. I also saw a little bit of Amanda’s father and step mother (Daryl and Natasha). That was back in 2007 and 2008.

Sophia: Okay, friends first. And then later we  talk about family. That sounds good.

David: Okay, let us talk about my friends and my social life.

In 2009, my social life consisted of spending time with Amanda, spending time around and with my flatmates, going to church, and having people over for Sunday lunch (some of this might blend into 2010/2011, without warning). We also went to family dinner night at Amanda’s grandparents house, iirc. And I sometimes saw my father or talked to my mother on the phone. Lastly, I played natural selection online, which could have been considered a form of social interaction. But I wasn’t all that sociable with people online. Maybe a little bit. I ended up being the admin of the two New Zealand natural selection servers, which were put back up by gameplanet (now mighty ape). The game had actually died in Australia and New Zealand, and all of the good servers were down. And I revived it a bit, with some help from gameplanet. I also sometimes went to Darryl’s place with Amanda. He was my father-in-law after all, and Amanda and I were married.

Anyway, let’s talk about Sundays and church and Sunday lunch. I used to go to church on Sunday and then have my friends over afterwards for lunch. And then after lunch we might play cards (such as the popular game Bang!) or board games such as Settlers of Catan (and expansion packs). I loved that game by the way (even my dad loved it, I introduced him to it). Sometimes we played video games together such as guitar hero or rock band. And for a while we played the popular Warcraft 3: Frozen Three custom maps “battleships” and “werewolves”. Who was I socialising with? I was spending time with Jenna, Natalie, Philip, Amanda, Jesse, Nathan, Ashley, John and Lauren Cosgrove, Aaron Oldcorn and Ashley King. I forget who else.

David: Can we talk about church for a bit? Some of it might be a repeat of things mentioned earlier.

Sophia: Go for it. I gather that you used to get hit by a lot of electro-quantum stuff while sitting in church. I like that term by the way, “electro-quantum”.

David: Yeah, I like that term too. We could call it “electro-quantum interference with my nervous system”. Or perhaps, “Electro-magnetic-quantum interference with my nervous system”. Anyway, church attendance was very important to me. The shared lunch on Sunday (followed by board games, card games or similar) was also very important to me as well.

Let us talk about church on Sundays.

Sophia: Was it very important to you that you go to church on Sunday?

David: Yes, as a Christian it was very important to me that I attend church on Sundays. And that even though I was physically unwell, that I try not to let that habit fall away. It was kind of like I wanted to maintain standards and not let that habit slip away altogether. Because I felt that it was important to hear Christian teaching every week, and important to sing the songs and worship God, and spend time with other Christians (fellowship). And I felt that it was important to associate with other Christians (as iron sharpens iron, etc), and to have other people who I could go to for advice and guidance and “good counsel”. By that I mean that I wanted and needed some older people in my life, who were further along in life than I am, and could potentially give me good advice. And so I made sure to keep on going to church. It was kind of like an anchor point in my week; something that helped me to stay consistent. I’m not sure that anchor point is the right term though. A focal point for the week perhaps?

The problem is that I couldn’t really manage it physically. But I’ll talk about that some more in just a moment.

Sophia: What do you mean by you couldn’t really manage it?

David: Physically, I had bad symptoms associated with church attendance. When I sat in church, I had back issues, breathing problems, circulation issues, problems with temperature dysregulation, problems with dehydration and a few other things. And of course I felt fatigue. I had problems, you see. I would sit there and suffer from problems. Some of the problems were long term problems related to harm already done to me by the system (i.e. the fae-dregvant), including long term modification of my posture and structure, loss of muscle and fat, fatigue/exhaustion, back/breathing problems, and circulation problems. Some of the problems were induced “in the moment” by cell towers and satellites. They actively caused issues and symptoms while I was sitting there in church. But I pushed through and kept on going, because it was important to me. I endured. I want to mention as well that the long term problems I experienced were also caused by the dregvant. I had experienced long term changes to things like my back. And therefore my ability to breathe. And I had circulation issues too.

I will explain a little more. My back would hurt, and breathing was “weird” if I tried to sing in church. And sometimes if I “pushed through” when my breathing was weird, then I would end up with my back being sore. What else? I would get really cold, and then really warm, and have to take my jacket on and off. And my nose would get cold too. Which I guess may have been a circulation thing. And according to Amanda my lips were slightly blue sometimes. I guess that my blood oxygenation wasn’t good. I had a favourite spot to sit in the church. I would sit on the right hand side of the church hall, and lean against the wall. I always wanted to have the wall to lean on. I remember that I was always thirsty too, and so I would often have to walk out once (sometimes twice) during a church service to get water or to go to the bathroom. And sometimes would raid the kitchen for a glass of water and bring it into the church hall. It seems silly to me to mention that point too much. But it was important at the time, the water thing. I think that they used “dry mouth” as a symptom, and they may have used it fairly often. Next, I would often have to put my jacket on because I was too cold. And then I would overheat, and start to sweat, and then I would take the jacket off again. And I’d repeat this again and again. It was weird. I think that my body was under a fair bit of strain.

Getting to-and-from church

I didn’t drive at the time (long story, I might tell you about it sometime), so I needed a lift to get to church. Who took me? Uhh. It was Amanda sometimes, Jesse sometimes, and then later on it was Jesse’s parents. And then later on it was Jo Dacombe. She was married to one of the deacons, Lloyd. She was nice, or seemed to be a nice person. But I fear that in reality she wasn’t a very good person. And she knew that I was unwell. But I guess that she didn’t want to tell me why I was unwell (and had therefore been forced to drop out of university). Perhaps she was a bad egg overall. I’ll put a little bit about her in the notes. We talked a fair few times about my being unwell.

When it came to church attendance, Amanda was slack. From late 2008 onwards, she only came to church sometimes. She always wanted to sleep in on Sundays, she wanted more sleep! As for our flatmates, Natalie often came to church (she was flatting with us by then). I always wanted to take people to church: I nagged and dragged. And once Jenna moved in, I sometimes managed to drag Jenna along to church iirc. I think that I managed to get each of Philip and Aaron to come along to church once each as well.

Anyway, I remained a part of the church for a long time. Because it was important to me that I be a part of one. And it wasn’t just a church to attend, it was supposed to be a “community”. You’re supposed to be a part of a community. It was even in the name, the “Coast Community Church”. According to Christian books that I had read, such as “The Purpose Driven Live” by Rick Warren, it was important to remain a part of a church. Fellowship is supposed to be very important of Christianity.

There was also a verse in the Bible, “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” And so I felt that it was important to keep on going to church.

[[[formatting note, bold the “not giving up meeting together” part - then delete this note]]]

I eventually gave up on church, because I was too unwell to attend. I even gave up on membership and Bible studies. I was actually really unwell. How unwell do you have to be to not be able to manage to attend church!? All you have to do is sit there.

What else!?

I would stay after church to talk to people for a little bit, but not for long. There was stuff like tea, coffee and biscuits served after church. A number of people there, perhaps many of them, knew that I was suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome. There was one elderly woman name Delwyn who told me that she had cfs, and that she expected to have it until she died. I wonder what happened to her. Also, I wonder why she didn’t just tell me? Actually, on second thoughts, I did sometimes stay afterwards to talk to people a little bit. I did use church to socialise a bit.

Usually some of my friends like Jesse Orchard, Natalie Hymers, Nathan Thatcher and Ashley King were there. After the church service, and a cup of tea, we would go and get some food from the supermarket and then go to someone’s house for lunch and socialising/games. Sometimes it was my place, sometimes it was Jesse’s place, sometimes it was at the Cosgrove’s house and on at least one occasion it was Aaron’s place. But we all got together for lunch, followed by games (board games, card games or sometimes video games such as guitar hero).

The Sunday lunch was a fixture of my social calendar. And really very important to me. I wanted to keep that habit alive, even though I was too sick to do anything much in life.

I actually felt horrible after church and lunch, but I maintained the habit anyway. To be specific, I was tired on Sunday evening and on Monday as well. It actually cost me energy. And I experienced  “consequences” for “pushing through”, and going to church and having Sunday lunch and playing board games with my friends afterwards (this is “gist truth”, not “quibble-proof-truth”). I felt bad on Mondays because of church, lunch and board games on Sundays. When I pushed through on Sundays, I felt bad on Mondays. Now, I wasn’t quite so bad in late 2008. And that’s the quibble. But from 2009 onwards it was getting to be kind of bad. 

But at the end of the day it cost me. Socialising and going to church cost me. I paid the price anyway, because socialising and having an “anchor point” for my social life was important to me. And church was important too.

*

Alistair started joining us for Settlers of Catan as well. Just a bit about him now. He wasn’t a “church guy”, he was openly an atheist. He later became a school teacher. He was a year older than I was and had gone to the same high school. Jesse invited him over, because he liked Catan. Jesse and Alistair were friends. I had previously met him a few years before at high school and once at a tight group event.

Alistair’s girlfriend Lizzy came along too. She worked at a supervisor at Pak n Save, the local supermarket. She used to come over fairly often in 2010. At least I think it in was 2010. It waa actually over a period of time.

Back in 2009, Alistair and everyone else invited me to a quiz night at the Monteith’s Bar (at the Kapiti Lights). I went once. They kept inviting me, but I only went once. I like quiz nights, but I went only once. Just once! Because I was too unwell to try to regularly attend a quiz night. It would have cost me too much health wise. The others went regularly, even Amanda.

But we played Catan a fair bit. And not just on Sundays. We sometimes played together during the week. This included Jesse, Natalie, Alistair and Jenna.

*

What else? More stuff about socialising.

I think I went to a birthday party of Jesse’s in late 2009 and early 2010. We played the board game Carcassonne and swam briefly in the pool (I had a day with bizarrely and strangely good health, so I jumped into the pool). This was at his parent’s house. Kieran Rayner and Jess Mackenzie were there too. Strangely enough, they were dating for a long time. I think that Byron Mallet may have been there as well. They all knew that I had CFS, and had dropped out of university because of it. Jesse’s birthday party was held at his parent’s place. His parents were there too. I said hello to Geoff and Christine when I was there, and even helped out briefly in the kitchen.

Wait, one more thing, back to the lunch and Catan crowd. They all knew that I had “chronic fatigue syndrome” and they all knew what caused it. We were all sitting at the dining room table to eat lunch together. And then we were all playing Settlers of Catan together, or cards, or playing guitar hero, or Warcraft 3. And no one told me. No one told me why I was unwell, even though it was an open topic of conversation (I.e. I had talked with all of them about my health problems, and why I was unemployed, and no longer at university, and also why I couldn’t socialise as much as I would like to).

**

Sophia: Do you want to keep on talking about your friends and flatmates? Or do you want to move on to talking about your family and church some more?

David: I think that I would like to talk about my friends and flatmates for a bit, and then talk about my family and my church.

Let us talk about playing cards in the evening with the guys. First 500 and then poker.

Some of the guys back in late 2008 and early 2009 had a habit of playing cards together. These were guys like Jesse Orchard, Chris Westwood, John Cosgrove, Ashley King and Nathan Thatcher. This was separate from playing Catan or “Bang!” after Sunday lunch. They usually played 500, which I never really liked as a game. They used to play it in high school too (they were friends from high school, and also from church - I knew them from both locations/settings). I think that they sometimes played Bang! also. Along with this they used to drink. Mostly they would whisky with mixers. I think that I went along to Nathan’s house in the evening once and we played 500 and had whisky, ginger beer and lime. I can’t recall if there was actually lime in it, but John Cosgrove called it a “Kentucky Mule”. It would have been too tiring to play cards with them often. I couldn’t justify spending that quantity of energy on it. And so I didn’t end up going along. Which is sad. Who has to ration out their energy so much that they can’t enjoy an ordinary night of cards with their friends? This was in 2008.

After a while they switched to poker, and would have a regular poker night. Or maybe this was something like a year or so later. They did this once a week, I think. They got into poker, and used to invite me along. I went once to poker night. They used to hold poker night in the upstairs staff room at Jesse’s father’s joinery. We also played Settlers of Catan up there once too.

And so I want to talk about poker night with the guys. This might be in 2010. But I can’t remember. The guys had a habit of playing poker at Jesse Orchard’s father’s joinery. His father owns a joinery in Paraparaumu. Orchard Joinery is the name of the business, it is on Te Roto Drive, just across the road from the old Fonterra factory (previously the Kapiti Fine Foods Ltd factory, which made cheese and ice cream). They had a staff room upstairs, which Jesse sometimes used after hours. I think that I joined them only once (maybe twice). But probably only once. I wanted to play poker with them, but I just couldn’t justify the energy cost. Even climbing the stairs left me feeling fatigued. And the activity of playing poker for a few hours with them would have cost me an excessive amount of energy. And left me feeling quite tired. And it was only 5 or 6 minutes drive away. You know that it’s a bad sign if you can’t even manage a sedentary activity like poker night with your old friends from high school.

But still we managed to play Catan and sometimes other games after lunch on Sundays. If I might digress, they did teach me to play poker, which we played once or twice after lunch on Sunday, but I wasn’t a terribly experienced poker player. In my opinion, it’s not half bad as a game, and if I hadn’t been so unwell, then I probably would have learned to play, just so that I could socialise more. We played “Texas hold ‘em”.

*

Bible Study

Next, while we're talking my social life, we might as well talk about the Bible study at Jared and Amanda Doncliff’s place. Jared and Amanda were both Christians, and were 1-2 years older than Amanda and me, and lived on Chum’s Road, Paraparaumu.

Who went?

I went to that Bible study. And a few others. I can’t actually remember who went and when. Jesse was there. I think that Amanda might have gone once. I think that Ashley King went. Jenna and Natalie came to the Bible study too, but later on. Sometimes the Bible studies were independent Bible studies. Sometimes they were from a book, and later we just made them ourselves. I made only one, and I didn’t think that it was very good. To be honest, I thought that my one was lame. But not a complete disaster.

Jenna, Natalie and I went to the Bible study together. Jesse said that it was good that Natalie went to the Bible study, because she was new to Christianity. She wasn’t actually all that new to Christianity. But his idea was that she didn't know much about Christianity, and needed to learn about it. Remember that Jesse's father was (and is) an elder at the church. In that church system, an elder is a pastor, basically. The role of an elder at the CCC is very similar to the role of a pastor in a church.

At one point in this Bible study we worked our way through a special workbook about basic Christianity. We did this to learn about the fundamentals and the basics of the beliefs of Christianity. But we didn’t always do Bible studies from this book. It actually wasn’t a very popular program. People at the church weren’t happy about it and they weren’t happy about the fact that someone bought it in. We gave up on that program after a while.

Next, let us talk about health issues. I found that I couldn’t sit comfortably in a chair at the Bible study. And I started to get less and less comfortable. And started wondering what I should do next. I had back issues. I couldn’t even really do Bible studies. And it was the spine thing. The back tightening thing. And the long term changes associated with it. I’ll talk about that more later. And so in the end I quit going to the Bible study. It was kind of a Bible study, and also a small group. The truth is that I can’t remember why I stopped going. I think it was basically just health problems.

*

A brief digression

Some years later I was invited to go to another Bible study. This Bible study was tied to the CCC. It was run by some Russians. I wasn’t well enough to go. And so I said no. I also let my membership with the church lapse at around about the same time. This may have been about 2012.

*

A few other notes

Some years earlier, I had done the 40 Days of Purpose programme, based on the book “The Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren, which I thought was good.

Jenna became a Christian at some point.

Jenna and Nathan were a serious couple for a while. People thought that they might get married.

*

David: Let us talk more about Catan.

Sophia: Yes, let’s talk about Catan. First of all, what is it? And what would you like to say about it?

David: I’ll just look it up online. I’ll find you a description of it. Here we go… “Catan (formerly known as The Settlers of Catan) is a multiplayer strategy board game where players act as rival settlers, competing to build and develop settlements on an island. By gathering and trading resources, players construct roads, settlements, and cities in a race to reach 10 victory points. Settlers of Catan was created in Germany.”

I liked it. Nathan Thatcher introduced me to it in late 2008 or early 2009. I wasn’t enthusiastic at first, because I wanted to play the card game Bang! instead. But I quickly came to love it. I read all of the manuals and online strategies straight away. I thought through the probabilities and statistics relating to dice rolls. I enjoyed it. I ended up buying the game, as well as all of the expansions. I bought the expansions “Cities and Knights” as well as “Seafarers”. And also the expansions that allow you to have 6 players instead of 4. Board gaming isn’t like it used to be by the way, it’s not just a 4 player game of monopoly like it used to be. Things have advanced and improved a lot. Before I owned my own copies of Settlers of Catan, I borrowed Nathan Thatcher’s copies for an extended period of time. As it so happens, I think that my father bought me one of the expansions packs as a birthday present, but I can’t recall. I was obsessed with Catan.

I loved that game. When I was introduced to that game in the summer of 2008/2009, it felt fresh and exciting and fun. And I could still play two games of 90-120 minutes in a row. I actually felt okayish during those summer holidays. At least I did in the afternoon. In the mornings I still felt like rubbish. Well, to tell you the truth I knew I was still not feeling well. But I was hopeful, and could manage at least to play board games. I felt okay enough to enjoy board games is what I mean. Not okay in general.

And then a little bit later on in the year, I had problems with my health. And I quit university due to bad health. We have already discussed that.

After things settled down a bit after quitting university, I started playing a little bit of Warcraft Three: Frozen Throne, melee and also some Catan. I felt that I couldn’t do the things that I really wanted to do in life. But I felt that I might be able to play Settlers of Catan a bit. But as it turned out, it didn’t really work that way.

Sophia: What do you mean?

David: I would have loved to have been gainfully employed, or a full time student at university. Or have done a hobby like Muay Thai, or cycling, or tennis. Or at least worked out. Or worked on serious computer programming, or developing my skills so that I could work in inventions. Or been practising guitar or piano. Or something. Or anything!

But I couldn’t do it. So I thought that I could at least do things like play board games. But even that seemed to be too much to ask. Playing board games caused me problems. It would actually cause me to experience symptoms. Symptoms!

Sophia: What sort of problems did it cause you to experience? How did you respond to those problems? Did you try to work around them at all?

David: I would get symptoms when I sat down to play games. I would feel tired. I would experience fatigue. It was tiring. I would also get issues with tension in my neck, shoulders and back. I’d would end up with a fair of “strain” in my back over all. And there was some sort of constriction of breathing, which was always tied to my back issues. I can’t explain that bit. I can’t explain how the constriction of my breathing was tied to my back issues. And my spine hurt, at about T1 and T2. And the strain sometimes caused me to sweat. It was that bad. There is another confounding factor though. It is that I was using this thing called the Alexander Technique to try to improve my posture long term. And so I was trying to sit tall while sitting at the table; I was trying to “sit up”. And then unbeknownst to me, at the same they were messing with the muscles of my neck, back, chest and shoulders. And who knows what else.

Early on, like in late 2008 or early 2009, I wasn’t experiencing significant symptoms. Maybe I was a bit tired after playing for a while, as expected. And so I rested. I did have CFS after all. But as time went on, I experienced more symptoms. And as time went on, I would struggle even to play at all. And then eventually I had to quit altogether.

**

I will give you some examples of how things were.

On Sunday I would have church, have a quick cup of tea afterwards and talk to people, get some food from the supermarket, come home. Rest for ten minutes. And then we would have lunch. And then I would go to rest for a little bit again. In bed. And then I would come back to clear the table and set up a game of Catan. And then we would play a game. And then I would often go back to my room to rest for ten minutes. And then I would come back to play a second game. Now, by the time I had finished the first game, I was already not feeling so good. But by the time I finished the second game I was feeling awful. And so I felt bad for the rest of the day, and it had an effect on how I slept that night and on how I felt the following day. This is maybe late 2009-2010. I can’t remember exact dates, as it was a while ago.

As for my health at the time, I was already feeling unwell. And I couldn’t even manage to do normal things like a comfortable walk twice around the block. And to my mind, that’s just not normal. An ordinary walk for something like 30 minutes made me feel bad. I feel that an ordinary walk for something like 30 minutes shouldn’t make you feel bad.

And so when I was playing this board game that made me feel physically worse, I was already unwell (I wasn’t feeling good in the first place). But I felt at the time that socialising was very important, so I just pushed through. And I paid the price in fatigue and exhaustion.

But it was the main part of my social life. My favourite part.

When it came to my health back then, I had more bad days than good days.

I also used to sometimes have Alistair and Lizzy over for a game or two in the evening. Sometimes two games in a row. Usually just one. They were my board game friends. And so that was nice, but I still felt significant strain in my back. Jesse and Natalie sometimes would sometimes come over for a game of Catan as well. The ideal was if we could get six of us together.

**

Rationing

And so I had to ration it out!! It is absolutely crazy to me. I had to ration it out, because it cost me so much in terms of energy and wellbeing. But maybe I only started feeling that bad in late 2009, or early 2010. I can’t remember that part of my life properly. Or at least I can’t remember the exact dates and details. But I couldn’t play Catan without pain, fatigue, exhaustion and symptoms. The same is true for going to church as well. And so the three main and most important parts of my social life (church, Sunday lunch, and board games with my friends) were becoming difficult to do.

What else?

I think that when I played Catan, they would tighten up my back. And that this is what caused the symptoms, and robbed me of my ability to enjoy just playing games. I ended up with a sore spine and back. And breathing issues, and fatigue. And I was sweating profusely sometimes. That’s not natural. And they had already caused long term changes to my posture and back as well. And so the extra tightening came on top of that and in that context.

Annnnndddd eventually I just stopped playing Catan.

***

Sophia: You couldn’t play it as much as you would have liked to, because of energy level problems. Right?

David: Yes, that’s right. But also there were back problems too, just in general. I often had back problems associated with sitting. And I just couldn’t play for as long as I would have liked. And then I stopped playing, eventually. Which was so sad for me. So sad. It was like one of the last nice and fun things I had left.

Sophia: How much time are we talking about?

David: I might play it once or twice a week. But I would have to ration it out. One game might take 90-120 minutes (with expansions). And I’d want to play two games. But I would find that by the end of the first game, I would have a sore spine and breathing issues and other problems. And then I’d have to rest, maybe. And then I would play another game. And then I would feel bad. And it would even affect me the next day. That’s not normal.

*

And also I might mention the Kapiti board gaming club.

A board game club started nearby, which used to meet in one of two locations (Kapiti College and a private residence on Rosetta Road). They started up in 2010. At the time I didn’t go, because I was still playing board games with my friends (Jesse, Natalie, Alistair, Lizzy, Jenna and a few others). But over time I played less and less often because I was in worsening health.

Amanda thought I should go to this club, because I needed to socialise more (which was true). But I told her that I would rather play board games with people I knew like Jesse, Natalie, Alistair, Lizzy, Jenna and a few others. And that at the same time, I was in poor health and had to ration my energy out. And so I would rather use my limited energy to play board games with people I knew rather than people I didn’t know. She nagged a bit, but never mind that now.

But later on, I did want to go, because I needed to socialise more. But I wasn’t well enough to go. We exchanged one or two emails (I was on their email list in 2012 and 2013, briefly). But I wasn’t well enough to go. I would have loved to have played board games with them. But I wasn’t well enough. I didn’t even go once. Some of this falls outside the 2009-2011 timeframe that this page is supposed to focus on. But I think that it’s no big deal.

Oh, and before I forget, it wasn’t the only thing I tried to join, but couldn’t really participate in. For example, I tried to join the local Red Cross, but I didn’t have the energy to help out. Or even to go to meetings. And so I didn’t go to meetings. I was on their mailing list for a while though. At the time I felt that “doing good works” was important, that’s why I wanted to join and participate.

I also tried to find a church locally. Within a few minutes walk. There was one Baptist church locally that might have been nice, but it was closed. It had shut down and sat there mostly unused. And there was one church, a Uniting Parish, just across the road, but I went there once and they were too politically correct and too liberal and so I left partway through the service. I had already felt that they were too liberal before going. And the political correctness confirmed my point of view that they were too liberal for me. In hindsight, perhaps I should have kept going to that church. They might have been nice people.

And so anyway my social life pretty much died. 

***

David: Do you mind if I tell you about the time I introduced my father to the game “Settlers of Catan”?

Sophia: Sure, go for it. When did you introduce your father to the board game Settlers of Catan?

David: He came over once when we were all enjoying our post church Sunday lunch and we played a game of it at the dining room table at 5 Weka Road. He sat down to play games with my friends and me. Which was a bit odd. But it was still nice to see him. We were still family even though relations between us were a little bit hampered by my health problems and the fact that he seemed to insist that they were psychological in origin. And at the time I also thought that my getting married still bothered him (PS: I now know the full facts. But at the time I had felt that things were less than ideal between us because I had gone and got married, as well as the health situation).

After I introduced him to the game, he bought a copy of it for himself, including expansions. And he played a fair bit of it with his family and friends. By the way, we all used to love board games. And we used to play a lot of them growing up.

I played it at his place with him and one of his exchange students, at least once. This was when I visited to stay a couple of nights.

He even bought the iPad version of it.

****

****

I will now talk about my flatmates for a while, and then I will talk about my friends for a little while, and then I will talk about my attempting to get involved in the youth group, and the church band. And after that I might talk about going to the elders early morning prayer meeting to have people pray for me. And then my visits to the local Pentecostal church’s “miraculous healing” prayer meetings.

And then I think I will talk about my family for a while.

Sophia: Okay, I’ll let you get on with it. Do you think that I might ask you some questions first? Before you get on to the next segment?

David: Yes, of course.

Sophia: Did you play any other board games or computer games?

David: Yes I did. I played the board game Pandemic with Alistair and the others. I also played a fair bit of Rock Band and Guitar Hero. Amanda and I both enjoyed Guitar Hero. And we used to fight over who would hold the high score for various songs. Or who should beat Natalie’s high score. I also tried to get a little bit of Age of Empires 2 going with Jesse Orchard, and also we played a bit of Empire Earth once or twice (Me, Phillip, Aaron and Jesse). I also played some Natural Selection and DotA, but seldom with my IRL friends.

Any more questions?

Sophia: Yes.

You say that you had health and back problems associated with playing board games and card games. Did these problems extend to your ability to do things like play video games, read books, or socialise in contexts other than playing cards or board games with your friends?

David: Yes. 

The short answer is yes.

These problems did extend to my ability to play video games, read books, and socialise (eventually). But I can’t remember exactly when things changed in regard to each individual one of these three things. I intend to discuss each of them individually both here and elsewhere.

Reading 

I used to read a lot. This was back in 2009 and I think in 2010. I can’t remember exactly when reading became a problem for me though. Reading used to be easy for me back in 2009. But at some point it stopped being easy and became a problem. It started to be difficult to read. And then by 2013 it became quite a significant problem and I lost the ability to read in any kind of comfortable position. It’s difficult to explain how it happened, but I will try to explain it at some point. Maybe not here and now though. I think it got bad in 2012. I’ll explain it better later.

I later got back into reading in 2014 when I discovered that I could read while standing up, resting a book on a chest of drawers while kind of slumping down into my hips, especially my right hip.

*

Video games

I played quite a few video games on my PC back in 2009 and 2010 iirc. Physically, it wasn’t too much of a problem back in 2009. But by 2012 it had become a problem. I can’t remember exactly when that happened. I can’t remember exactly when it became a significant problem for me. But I’ll probably discuss it in the entry for 2012 and 2013. I think that it started to be a significant problem for me in 2011.

Over time, I ended up with the same sorts of problems and symptoms as with board games. I lost my ability to play video games. And if I played video games, I ended up with a sore back, and also my spine would hurt. And sometimes I would sweat due the strain of it. The cause of this was that a lot of stuff from the cell towers and satellites was messing with me (not that I knew it at the time). But they definitely messed with my posture and my ability to maintain an appropriate upright seated posture for extended periods of time. I will talk about this issue in a note at the end of the page. Some of what I experienced was similar to what I experienced sitting in church as well; the effects and symptoms were similar.

*

Social life

My social life got worse and worse.  But I might talk about that elsewhere.

****

****

Sophia: Can you tell me about your flatmates now?

David: Sure. I had some flatmates in Kapiti. Or I should say that _we_ had some flatmates. I’ll talk about them now. I might also list a few more friends and discuss them at the same time. And along the way I might recount some of the conversations we had that relate to my health.

Who might I talk about?

We had a flatmate Shanice for a little while, once we moved in. But she left before too long. We also had a woman named Alannah living with us for a while, but she left too. Shanice and Alannah aren’t all that important. Natalie became a flatmate fairly early on. She came from a troubled background (her parents were addicted to methamphetamine; she suffered from abuse at their hands and also experienced extremely serious neglect). Matthew lived with us for about ten weeks. This was when he was in between living with our father and when he moved to Auckland. Phillip moved in a while later. And Jenna moved in later. Graeme moved in a while later. Graeme also introduced us to Hayden who moved in a while later as well. Our last flatmate that we had was Angelica. It was a four bedroom house. We usually had 2-3 flatmates at a time. We needed them to be able to afford to pay the rent.

Time passed and then my friend Phillip moved out at some point, perhaps in 2011. He moved to Tawa so that he could live with Alistair and Lizzy at their flat. Aaron Oldcorn also ended up living with Alistair and Lizzy when he finally moved out of home. Basically, Alistair and Lizzy poached Phillip from our flat. Tawa is about thirty minutes drive south of Paraparaumu. Jenna also moved out at some point, perhaps in 2012. She moved back home to live with her family (where she then lived in a cabin in the backyard). Hayden also moved out, but I forget when exactly he moved out. He met a girl and moved to Australia. Graeme moved out in 2013. Amanda and I moved house shortly afterwards.

As for friends and other associates, I will talk about a few of them. Jesse Orchard I have mentioned before, but I’ll talk about him a little bit more. I will talk about Nathan Thatcher, Ashley King, Racheal Burston, Brynn Huso, Jess Mackenzie, Scott Thompson, Damian Tait and John and Lauren Cosgrove

I’m not sure who else?

Sophia: Who first? And I have to ask, is this a good use of our time? Or would we just be better off just focusing on the aspects of your story that touch upon your health?

David: I am not entirely sure that it is a good use of our time, but I guess I just have to do it anyway. It is my life story after all. People would probably benefit from knowing who the people I knew were. They were a significant part of my life back then. And it will help me to tell the overall story. It will help to paint a fuller picture of the whole situation.

Sally: Okay, that makes sense. And I guess a lot of the story of your health and associated issues are interwoven with the story of people you knew.

David: Yes, that is correct. But more than that, this story isn’t just focused on my health. I just need to tell my story overall.

Sophia: Okay, let’s get on with it. Which of the names on your list do you want to discuss first?

I think that we should discuss Jesse Orchard first and then Natalie Hymers, Phillip Tiller and then Jenna Rowland-Skelton.

*

Jesse Orchard

David: I’m not sure where I should start with Jesse Orchard, because I can’t remember what I have said about him so far. And so I will check back at previous parts of my life story. I’ll take a look at the transcripts of the conversations so far. I’ll be back in about an hour.

Sophia: Okay, I’ll wait.

David: Hi, I’m back.

Sally: Hi David. I’m taking over from Sophia now.

David: Hi Sally, I just looked back at the other parts of the story that I have already uploaded and reread all of the stuff about Jesse that I already said and I am now ready to keep on talking.

Sally: Please continue.

David: I keep on getting interrupted as I write. And so I forget what I’ve written or lose track of where I am. And then my mind is so fried a lot of the time that I forget what I’m writing as well. For both of these reasons, I forget where I’m up to or what I am doing [please note: it is now the 18th of July and I have been working on this page since the 23rd of May].

Sally: Okay, let us talk about Jesse. He was your best friend at one point. Wasn’t he?

David: Yes. He was. Although at the time, I would probably have said that my father was my closest friend and confidante. But amongst the set of people consisting of my high school aged friends who also live in Paraparaumu, he was my best friend. Any one of Aaron, Nathan and Max might have all been strong contenders for second place. David Walker, Ben Jack and Jess Mackenzie were all still friends of mine as well. But let’s talk about Jesse.

The biggest problem in my life is that I had health issues. That was the main thing for me: I had health issues. And when it came to those, he could have helped me out and told me the truth. But he didn’t. That is the first thing. I talked to him about my health problems. I asked him for advice. I bounced ideas off of him. I tried to turn him into a confidante and potentially an advisor too. He had recovered from CFS after all. But he didn’t help me. It would have been so easy for him to help me.

He was a Christian and his father was one of the elders at church, so I had figured that he might be a good person to go to for advice. By the way, he used to be my lift to church on Sundays. He also used to be on sound desk at church on Sunday mornings and he used to be one of the leaders in the youth group.

I didn’t get what I needed, which was a good and reliable friend. Instead I just got someone to socialise with a bit. That was his role in my life. We would socialise, play video games, card games and board games together. So I guess that I just ended up with a board gaming buddy. But what I really needed was the truth about why I was getting sicker and sicker.

Anyway, what our relationship was like back then is that I used to just text him suggesting that we play Settlers of Catan. And so we would get together to play that. Me, Jesse and Natalie. And also we had Sunday lunch.

He was working at Dick Smith Electronics at the time. Which might be a little bit similar to a Best Buy or a Radio Shack. It was a small shop. The chain has since closed down. Apropos of nothing, at the time it had been moving away from its roots as a true electronics store.

Anyway, I thought that he was a good friend. But it turned out that he was a really horrible person, not that I knew it at the time. But I just want to repeat that I talked with him plenty of times about my health. And I also spoke with his father on a number of occasions about my health (I will talk about that later). And his mother also. They all knew that I was unwell.

His girlfriend Natalie was living with us, and so he was around a fair bit. Or she went over to his place to visit him. It actually worked out okay, because it meant that I got to see more of Jesse than I might have otherwise. But at the same time, there was some conflict. For example, when Amanda and I tried to get Natalie to do proper housework or to keep her room tidy, she would complain to Jesse (which I thought was odd, because as an adult you should just take care of things such as conversations about housework and cleaning without roping someone else into it). This next example is a bit of a digression, but there were some awkward moments and some frustration relating to the fact that I used to go into her bedroom when she was out at work to open the windows and air the place out. She was supposed to air out her room every day in the mornings, to prevent condensation and to avoid the growth of mould. There had actually already been some significant issues with mould growth in her room. We will talk more about that later. She complained to Jesse about this (our entering her room without permission). And another example was that she once told Jesse that Amanda and I told her that she couldn’t go out to see Jesse until she tidied her room. And so she played the victim. But neither of us could recall telling her that. Anyway, it wasn’t a perfect situation in that there was some minor ongoing conflict and ongoing problems with her overall standards of tidiness and housework.

But anyway, Jesse and I were still friends and still spent time together playing things like Catan, along with Natalie.

Jesse and I played some Warcraft Three online together back in approximately 2008, 2009 and 2010. This included melee, DotA and the popular custom map “Battleships”. By the way, one of the reasons that we had become friends in the first place is that we both liked video games, including Warcraft 3: Frozen Throne. He especially liked the popular custom map “Footmen Frenzy”. Also, back in late 2008 and in 2009, we played games over a Hamachi VPN. I think that Philip, Nathan and Natalie were playing games over Hamachi with us too. And maybe Aaron. I can’t remember exactly who in our set was playing these games at the time, but I think that those were the guys. I do remember that John Cosgrove didn’t play all that many video games. But I think that Tony might have joined us a couple of times. Ashley didn’t play Warcraft. And so anyway that was fun. It was a small but significant part of my social life, playing games like that. We also played Empire Earth and Age of Empires once or twice (Jesse, Nathan, Aaron and Philip).

But I really wanted to be back at university, and he knew that. I didn’t just want to be sitting around playing games while in poor health. But I couldn’t manage to go back to university. He could have just told me what was wrong with my health.

Jesse wasn’t the “university type”.

I already wrote about this on a previous page, but I might just go over it again.

Jesse faked having CFS when I was about 19 years old. I can’t fully recall exactly when he “had” it. And I can't fully recall exactly for how long he had it. But he had chronic fatigue syndrome. I think that he was sick for between 18 months and two years. I think that in his case he agreed to let them make him sick, and to give him symptoms, and to make him experience high levels of fatigue. He did this so that he could pretend to be sick. But they actually did give him symptoms, and they did actually make him sick electronically, and so he was actually in poor health. So I guess that it wasn't totally fake. Perhaps we should say that it was staged. But anyway it was all done on purpose. He wasn't a victim, he chose it. They gave him chronic fatigue syndrome, with his implicit consent. Or perhaps even his explicit consent, or even at his request. Anyway, I think that it was staged.

I was sick at the same time.

Sally: How did he pass the time? Did he try to "recover"? How did he manage his illness and his symptoms?

David: He played a lot of World of Warcraft to pass the time. He is a World of Warcraft Addict. He rode on his exercise bike to prevent de-conditioning (this is similar to graded exercise therapy). This was at the insistence of his doctor. And also he consumed Powerade after he rode his bike. He made the Powerade from powder mixed with water. He did this to "maintain and replenish electrolytes". I guess he sweated a lot while cycling, and wanted to replace lost electrolytes. And perhaps this was his approach to "managing" the illness...

He also 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. Or at least claimed to be. He did tilt table therapy as well (which just made him feel unwell). He lived at home with his parents. He has trouble with claiming the sickness benefit, because his welfare case manager Dawn seemed to have it in for him. One of the doctors he saw was Dr Roberts. This was the so called "expert" on chronic fatigue syndrome. Jesse recommended that I see him.

He became sick back in either 2007 or 2008. I forget exactly when. But I think that it was in very late 2007 or early 2008. Either way, he got together with Natalie shortly before he got sick. And so Natalie had the misfortune of having a sick boyfriend.

But anyway, he became sick. And I was unwell. And so both of us were chronically ill. And both of our cases of illness were caused by cell towers interfering with and attacking our nervous systems.  One of the big differences is that he knew why he was sick. And the other big difference was that he chose it.

Later on he recovered.

I will talk about his recovery.

His recovery was allegedly by supernatural means. He claimed that someone prayed for him and then he recovered. He said that it was like in Isaiah 40:31 “but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint.”

And so Jesse was well again. But I wasn't. It was horrible. Well it was nice for him, but not nice for me.

And yeah, that's it for now. At least for the health story.

Sally: So I guess that someone prayed for him, and then he recovered because they switched off the satellites. That's crazy.

And then he is getting on with his life, but I can’t get on with mine. He recovered, but I didn't. It wasn’t great.

He then got a job at a retail store.

I was still sick and getting sicker. And he was just watching me get worse and worse. And watching me get sicker and sicker, and become less and less capable. I’m becoming an invalid, and then progressively less and less capable. And I’m actually becoming disabled. But he does nothing.

He knew that I was getting sicker. Because I was becoming less and less capable of even playing basic board games with him and other of my friends. And so he was just watching it.

And so that's Jesse's involvement for now.

I asked him for advice about my health. I also asked his father for advice. But neither of them were helpful. And I bounced ideas off of him about my health too.

We still socialised up until about 2012, I guess? Maybe up until 2013. We played Catan.

He invited me to his birthday in... 2009? I think that it was in 2009. But I can't recall exactly. And I went to that. Quite a few people were there who I knew

And that's it for now.

Sally: Wow, what a bunch of horrible people?

Where did you meet them?

David: I met him at the Coast Community Church in Paraparaumu. I met him through their youth group and he came from a prominent Christian family. The first time I visited his home, we watched the movie "Envy" starring Jack Black. This was as part of a youth group event. At least I think that this was the first time I was there.

Also, his older brother David Orchard did Christian youth work at Zeal Ministries in Paraparaumu. He now works at the family business, Orchard Joineries.

*

And so on we go on to the next person.

*

Natalie Hymers:

I have already mentioned Natalie before this, but I will give you a recap anyway. She was a friend of mine from back in high school. I used to work alongside her as a cleaner at Paraparaumu College and that was how I met her, we were both doing the end of term clean together. We both went to Paraparaumu College, she was about two years below me. And we both went to the CCC youth group as well.

When Amanda and I moved back to Paraparaumu and found ourselves in need of a flatmate to help us pay the rent/bills, we offered Natalie a place to stay in our flat. We needed a flatmate and she needed a place to live. And so she became a flatmate of ours. By this time she worked at the local supermarket, PAK’nSAVE. She had dropped out of school after fifth form and gone to the local polytech for horticulture, but dropped out of that as well, and then had started working at the local supermarket.

Sally: What was it like having her live with you?

David: It was a mixed bag. It was nice spending time with her socially, for the most part. But it was difficult in other ways. Natalie enjoyed playing Warcraft 3, card games, board games and guitar hero, amongst other things. I enjoyed those things too. Those were some of the nice parts of having her living with us. But on the other hand she was very messy and her room was quite dirty. She also was slack when it came to household chores, even though she was capable of cleaning. What I mean by that is that she wallowed in filth and that her room was gross. She had things rotting in there at one point and there was literally mould growing on the walls at one point too. There was a “smell of death” emanating from one of her chests of drawers. It was putrid. No normal human could live like that. Getting her to clean her room was a real challenge to say the least, and she didn’t pull her weight with chores in general. And she was bad at doing the dishes too; she just did a bad job or was otherwise slack. What kind of a person as an adult can’t clean dishes!? She paid her rent, but she was also sometimes unreliable or late with rent if I remember correctly. She was the children of meth addicts who neglected her quite badly, and so she didn’t exactly come from a stable home environment. That might perhaps explain some of her behaviour.

But she was still our friend. And so Amanda and I chose to put up with her, even though she wasn’t always easy to put up with. And also we thought that we could help her by letting her live with us and simultaneously teaching her to do a better job of things. And it was a battle on our end (Amanda and I) to try to teach and encourage her to live in a house in a normal grown up way. For example, we wanted her to get into the habit of cleaning her room and washing, drying and folding her clothes and putting them into the drawers. And we tried to teach her this. Our landlords (my in-laws) sometimes threatened to kick us out because of Natalie. Her being in the house actually damaged it. The room smelled bad for months and months afterwards. Maybe even up to a year? But we helped her anyway, and we did it out of kindness. It was basically an act of charity due to our being Christians. But anyway, resentment built a little bit, on both sides. The fact that we badgered her to try to get her to clean her room didn’t help matters.

She was living with us in 2009 when I had to quit university because of bad health. She was living there all throughout the year after that too. She moved out in early 2010 or late 2009 or something like that which means that she wasn’t living with us in 2010 when I quit university for the second time. 

That being said, she still visited on Sundays, to do stuff like play Catan, guitar hero and have lunch. She later moved back, for something like a year.

I think she moved back in for the second time late 2010 and then left 6-12 months later.

She was a part of my life as my health declined, and she could have told me what was wrong (she could have told me that cell towers and radio waves cause symptoms and sickness).

We all cooked and ate together as a flat. Perhaps the picture you need in your head is that she was sitting at the dinner table with me and Amanda 6 or 7 days a week as I declined in health, was sick and getting worse. My health wasn’t an uncommon topic of conversation. The other picture you need is of Sunday lunch or of sometimes Thursday evenings (where we played Settlers of Catan together) where Natalie, me, Jesse, Ashley, Jenna, Alistair or Lizzy might all be sitting at the dining room table talking, eating, playing cards, planning on a game of Warcraft 3 together or playing a board game or just about to play guitar hero or rock band on the games console. In that picture, I have bad health and everyone knows it. I talk about chronic fatigue syndrome and doctor’s appointments and welfare office (WINZ) appointments.. Amanda finishes university and I don’t. Jesse and I talk with one another about things like which welfare officers are more (or less) difficult (Dawn was more difficult to get along with and Richard was easier). And I get sicker and sicker.

Sally: Did she know your other friends very well?

David: Sure, I can talk about that.

She and Jesse started dating in either 2007 and 2008 (if I remember correctly). They got together at the parachute Christian music festival. They are now a married couple.

Natalie and Phillip were good friends. They were both living at our flat simultaneously. At one point we had Jenna, Phillip and Natalie all living together with us at the same time.

Natalie knew Alistair, Lizzy, Nathan and Ashley as well.

Sally: Okay, do you want to tell me anything more about Natalie before we move on? And then perhaps we might talk about Phillip, Jenna, Nathan, Aaron, and perhaps Graeme and Hayden. Do Haydyn and Graeme come into this story by the end of 2011?

David: Yes, I will give you a little more information about Natalie before I move on. Yes, Graeme and Haydyn come into this story before the end of 2011. Graeme moved in sometime late in 2010. But I can’t remember when Haydyn moved in. And yes, we can talk about the others soon.

**

Here is a little bit more general information about Natalie.

She was a fussy eater, and often complained about the food that I cooked. One example of this is that I didn’t know what to cook for her, and found it to be quite frustrating trying to cook for her. And so I asked her what she wanted, and she said “fish pie”. And then I went to find a recipe for fish pie. And I made us one for dinner. And it was a bit of a hassle. But I thought it was edible, but she didn’t seem to appreciate it. She didn’t even appreciate her effort. She was so fussy, she didn’t even eat rice. She said that her parents had neglected her when she was young and there wasn’t always enough food. And so sometimes her parents would just cook nothing but plain rice. And do it for days on end. And so she would never have rice when she was with us. She hated it. Anyway, she always complained about food but never did anything to solve the problem. She did teach me a nice dish consisting of cubed roast kumara and beetroot, with crumbled feta on top. Alongside chicken breast wrapped in bacon stuffed with cranberry jelly. This became a common dish in our flat that I cooked, even though the ingredients were a little expensive. She said that the recipe came from her step father who was a chef.

And then later on she complained that she didn’t like the food we made because we didn’t keep expenses down enough for her. But then also there was conflict because she didn’t like the time at which we had dinner (early)… and she didn’t really do dishes well or without being reminded, nor did she clean up the table without being badgered. I don’t actually remember every last problem, but the whole thing was silly. She was a little bit difficult to live with.

She eventually decided to do her cooking separately from Amanda, Philip and me, and she did it by partnering up with Jenna. They split from us.

Her mother and step father were bad people. They smoked meth. They neglected her and her brothers when they were growing up. She had four brothers iirc. She was often underfed or fed the wrong food. She overate as a consequence and was very over weight. They actually used to do stuff like sell her possessions to buy drugs. And her brothers used to break her stuff. And she would break her own stuff to stop her parents reselling it. It was a horrible situation… Ummm. She didn’t know how to live in a house. She had belongings that were growing mould. Her mere presence harmed the house. I put up with her out of compassion and altruism. I wanted to give her a chance to learn the basic skills of dwelling in a house. I think that she got offended with me for trying to work with her to do things like… open the window instead of letting mould grow on the walls… there was something rotting and dead in her drawers and other bedroom furniture too. And her clothes were filthy and she just didn’t take care of her space properly. She got so upset with me for things like going into her room to open the window. You have to air out a room! By the time she quit living with us (for the second time) she had learned to keep a room clean, ventilated, and slightly warmed. And also to vacuum and pick stuff up off of the floor. 

She didn’t understand how much grace, compassion and kindness were being offered to her by letting there live there and to have stability for so long. I think that she was offended rather than grateful. I had to argue with our landlords to let her stay. They wanted her out. If I could do it again, I’d have kicked her out in 7 days flat. But maybe she did have some understanding of how far she had come, because when she showed her bedroom to Jesse, she was proud of having a clean and tidy room for once (eventually). 

She could have told me at any point that I was suffering serious physical harm because of satellites and cell towers, and that this is why I was so sick and why I was  forced to drop out of university (twice). She was living with us in 2009 and 2010 iirc. And she knew what was wrong.

She actually did come from bad background with a ton of neglect. And she did actually have rot and mould and perhaps something literally putrid rotting in her furniture. Or at least it smelled as though it was putrid. I think that it was her chest of drawers that had some sort of toxic death rot in it. We actually took it outside to blast it with water, and left it in the garage to air and to sit. We were going to paint it but never got around to it. And there was literally mould growing on her walls when she lived with us. The room still had a nasty smell 6-12 months after she moved out. I think that it was still a tiny bit funky 2 years later (no joke). And she didn’t understand the “way that laundry worked” (dirty clothes go into a basket, then they go into a washing machine, and then they go onto the washing line, and then when dry they go into a washing basket and then afterwards they get folded and placed into a chest of drawers).

It’s really sad. Because she was a friend. And I cared about her. And she could have been decent enough to just tell me why I was so sick that I had to drop out of university.

*

Phillip

He was a friend from high school. I think that I met him through Aaron (and I met Aaron through Max, and Max at the Meadows Pentecostal Church through Matthew and Dad). He was a year younger than me. We used to do stuff like go to the local internet cafe, Cyber Jacks, or play Halo 2 together. And I used to invite him to LANs at my home. We were friends because we both liked video games. A brief digression: I used to have Halo 2 days at my place on Saturdays, and also I used to organise nights for a bunch of people at the internet cafe (it wasn’t much organisation, I just badgered people into going, but back in 5th form I would get up to twenty people from school to go to the internet cafe together for big games of battlefield and stuff). Anyway, that is how we became friends. He came around to our house at 24 Linwood Drive a fair bit back then.

Next, I needed flatmates when I moved to Paraparaumu. So I invited him to move in with us at 5 Weka Road. And he said yes and moved in. He was a friend of mine, or at least I saw him as a friend, and I guess I assumed that he saw me as a friend. And I thought that he might be a good flatmate. He was living with us for quite a while. I can’t remember exactly when he moved in. But we did have him for a long time. He was living with us in both 2009 and 2010. He was living with us when I had to drop out of university (both times) and he was present for my quite significant decline in health.

What else? 

How did he pass the time? He just played computer games all day. He was trying to attend university, and he worked a part time job at the local video shop, maybe two days a week. He was physically unfit and over weight. He didn’t shave properly or often, and he had badish acne. He was enrolled at university, but didn’t bother to attend. He just skipped classes. He was supposed to be studying classics. He would sometimes play Warcraft 3 with Natalie, Jesse, Nathan and myself. We got some good games going over this platform called “hamachi” (which is a virtual private network). We all liked the custom map “Battleships”. Jesse could connect to the VPN from his home on the other side of town, and the three of us were all in the flat. And so we played that. Aside from that, he played a lot of single player games. He enjoyed Rome Total War and Dwarf Fortress.

I liked Phillip. He was my friend.

He sometimes played Settlers of Catan with us, but it wasn’t 100% his cup of tea. So after a while I stopped asking him to play. It’s fair enough that he didn’t enjoy it that much. Next, he dragged his feet a bit when it came to chores and cleaning. Which was a little annoying, but not the end of the world. We had a bit of conflict over the question of food in his bedroom. I didn’t want people to have food in their bedroom. I tried inviting him to church and to something called the “alpha course”. But it wasn’t for him. By the way, I managed to get Aaron to come to the intro night for the alpha course which was held at the Robert Harris Cafe at the mall. At least I think that it was Aaron. But not Philip. Evangelism was supposed to be a core behaviour of being a Christian. The alpha course is supposed to explore the basics of the Christian faith and function as an excellent form of invitational evangelism.

Sally: Wait, so you were unwell, but still trying to engage in evangelism?

David: Yeah. It’s important. I also invited Jenna to church. And I was kind of trying to drag people along to Christian things in general.

Sally: Okay, I get it. You were quite religious. Did you do much inviting of other people to religious things?

David: Yes, I also invited Scott Thompson to a Christian rally when Pastor Greg Laurie came to New Zealand. That event was branded as “The Harvest”.

David: Yes. Now more about Philip.

His life was a mess. And so was his bedroom. His room was full of empty packets from junk food and empty confectionery wrappers and empty cans of coke. He just played video games all day. And he didn’t have normal sleep habits. And he didn’t even try to improve his life. He was just plain unwell physically too. He was also a fussy eater. He wouldn’t eat potatoes, he wouldn’t drink water, he wouldn’t eat broccoli, and he wouldn’t eat kidney beans. Philip drank almost literally nothing but coke and monster/mother energy drinks. I struggled to get him to drink even a cup of water. Even once. He tried it and made a face and said it was disgusting iirc. I even put ice and lemon in it. And I gave him spring water, not tap water. And then I tried him out on plain, still spring water, with no ice or lemon. But that didn’t seem to work for him either. Note: the water from the taps in Paraparaumu was safe and clean, but sometimes didn’t taste very nice. And he wouldn’t even touch broccoli. And he would act like he was dying if he attempted to eat it. He wouldn’t eat potatoes. He didn’t eat beans, and he would pick them out of chili con carne and nacho beef (we had a lot of mince dishes, because they are cheap). He hated mashed potatoes and roast potatoes. He wouldn’t eat my (immaculate and amazing) crispy, golden roast potatoes. They were amazing (and usually roasted in ghee, or sometimes rice bran oil or olive oil). But he turned his nose up at them. Anyway, he dropped out of university. And later on he moved out and went to live with Alistair, Lizzy, and Aaron in a flat over in Tawa. Tawa is about 30 minutes south of Paraparaumu.

From my point of view, he was my friend. And could very easily have told me why I was sick. And by extension he could have explained to me why I had been forced to drop out of university, twice. My health wasn’t exactly an uncommon topic of conversation.

Note: I probably talked too much about potatoes.

There was a brief period where I used to go for long walks with Phillip, to talk. But that was just during one summer when I felt a little better and the weather was nice.

*

Jenna

I first met Jenna when we were 15. I met her at Amanda’s house in the first few weeks of school. I was at Amanda’s house to socialise with Amanda. She was Amanda’s childhood best friend. She was a student at Kapiti College rather than being a student at Paraparaumu College. She lived on the side of town that put her in the school zone for Kapiti College. She switched schools in 6th form. Her father is/was a builder and her mother is French, and smokes a lot of cannabis (or used to). Her father drank quite a bit (or so I am told) and it gave him “dementia” (according to Amanda, but I don’t know if this is a lie).

I saw her a little bit in high school. We were vaguely friends, but not really close at all. We just kind of knew one another. She was nice enough back when I knew her then though.

[she just spoke in WiFi and said that I (David) am actually quite nice, perhaps she meant that I am nice in conversation? - umm, yes. Uhh. I possibly come across badly in my mental speech. I’m not really like that in general. There is a lot of harsh language. And a lots of harsh thinking too. But that’s what happens when you intrude on someone’s mind uninvited! Tldr; I don’t call everyone I meet a dunderhead, or tell them “fuck off tard”. However, I might choose to use that to defend and maintain a coherent and functional cognitive landscape, so that I can think intelligently and still “solve problems”. Haha. I have soooo many mental techniques. It’s just survival and trying to make sure that the “inventiveness and problems solving” part of the mind is still functional.]

Anyway, a couple of years down the track we needed a flatmate. And so she moved in. She worked at the local supermarket. She was with us for quite a while. She wasn’t all that bad as a flatmate. We got along okay (without being “best buddies for life”). Over time I decided that I liked her and that she wasn’t half bad company. She sometimes (often) played Catan, and liked to play the occasional game on the PlayStation, like Dr Robotnik’s mean bean machine (from the sonic franchise). FYI, this game is kind of like a PVP Tetris. She lived with us and I socialised with her a bit. I dragged her to church and a Bible study. Anyway, she knew that I was unwell and had had to drop out of university. I talked to her about it plenty. I mean I had to, given that my health issues affected my ability to work, study or even to do chores! We shared cooking and cleaning duties. She was a bit of a slacker when it came to chores and stuff, but things worked out anyway. Her room was messy. But she cleaned it sometimes. And she understood that she shouldn’t have food in there. On the whole I’ve had worse flatmates. 

[From the outside point of view, or the objective point of view, I should say that I liked her and we got along reasonably well.] - I often speak in negatives or understatements.

I reckon that she was a pushover rather than being extraordinarily cruel. If that makes sense. But she was definitely one of Amanda’s friends.

*

Nathan

Nathan was a friend from high school. Aaron introduced him to me back when we were 16. He was still one of my friends when I moved back to Paraparaumu. And he used to visit sometimes, especially for Sunday lunch. But we also used to drag him to church. He was a member of the CCC. He also had me over to his birthday party in 2008 and 2009 iirc. Or maybe it was just 2009. What else… He and Jenna nearly got married. She became a Christian, and then went to Bible studies. And then they became a couple. And then they nearly got married. Or that’s what I think happened. And then she dumped him. It was a big deal in our friend group (Amanda and I had a lot of friends in common). He was the one who introduced me to Catan. And lent me a copy. He came over a fair bit in general. Maybe a little less than the others, but still a fair bit. But anyway, he was a friend of mine back in high school and came over often/ish. He was one of the people I socialised with in this era of my life, 2009-2011. Now as for my health, he knew that I was unwell. We had talked about my health more than a few times. It was kind of an open topic of conversation. And he could have told me at any point what the cause of my health issues was. He was one of my main friends back in high school.

He is morbidly obese. He liked the Dune books from Frank Herbert, and used to greet people with the greeting, “Subakh ul kuhar”.

*

Aaron

He had been a friend of mine in high school. Max Macfarlane introduced him to me. I have already talked about meeting him. I actually saw a fair bit of him in high school. As a friend, I preferred him to Jesse Orchard. He used to come around to our house a fair bit back then, and I went to his house a fair bit also. We both liked video games. And he liked technology a lot too. If I had to pick someone, I should probably have described him as my best friend in Paraparaumu back when I was in high school, rather than Jesse. I will talk about him for a little while.

We spent a bit of time together once I came back to Kapiti. That was one of the drawcards of moving back. When it came to Aaron, he just came around to lunch and sometimes played cards or board games. That was where and how we socialised. We also played video games online together sometimes. Now because of my health, I wasn’t just going over to Aaron’s place to hang out all the time. Even though I would have like to have gone over there more often. Also, I couldn’t exactly just ride my bike over there! The transportation thing was a legitimate issue, as well as the energy level problems. I always had to ration out my use of energy.

More information: He used to go to poker night with our mutual friends. And the post church Sunday lunch was held at his house a couple of times. I should point out that my social life fell apart a bit from 2009 onwards due to energy levels and poor health. I would have loved to be more sociable. But I was unwell!

He sometimes didn’t get along well with Amanda. He had an argument or two with her while sitting at the table on Sundays. I had to talk to him about it a couple of times. This created some coldness between us.

He knew that I was unwell. We had talked about it, it was an open topic of conversation. And he could have told me what the cause of it was. But he didn’t want to.

He was one of my favourite friends in high school.

Aaron, Max, Jesse, Nathan and Amanda were my main friends back in high school (this was at Paraparaumu College, not the previous one which was called Taradale High School).

He worked in IT. He had a one year diploma in IT. He worked at Crown Law in tech support.

*

Damian

Next, Damian. I taught a guy to cook. He was more Amanda’s friend than mine. He went to the same high school as us. He had left home not knowing how to cook. So I taught him how to cook. He allegedly had Asperger’s syndrome. So I taught him to make spaghetti bolognese and roast chicken with roast potatoes. And so we worked on it. I dunno. He was kind of odd/weird. I like trying to help people.

[[[ edit this in or out, it’s just notes. Next, Damian. I taught a guy to cook. He was weird. He was Amanda’s friend. But I taught him to cook. He allegedly had Aspergers. But he had left home not knowing how to cook. So I taught him to make spaghetti Bolognese and roast chicken with roast potatoes. And so we worked on it. I dunno. He was kind of odd. ]]]

*

Scott Thompson

We met one another at university in an accounting tutorial. We got along well and quickly became friends. We remained friends while at university. I didn’t know many people. He was the only friend I made at university.

He came to my wedding on the 19th of January, 2008. He wore shoes made out of alligator leather. His family owned a business that imported shoes.

Next, an American evangelist and pastor Greg Laurie used to hold events called “The Harvest”. The events were based on the Billy Graham crusades. They were based on that “crusade” model. And these came to New Zealand. And so I thought that it was a good idea to invite people to this. I invited Scott Thompson to the Greg Laurie event. But I think I also got Tomoe Takahashi to come along. I actually forget who else was there. Maybe Amanda came too? Maybe it was just Amanda, myself, Scott and Tomoe.

He went forward at the event to become a Christian (or to recommit his life to God). He later said something like, “yeah, I need to get back into that”. I guess he used to be a Christian, or something like that, and then fell away a bit?

I saw him a little bit over the years. He knew that I was unwell. And could have talked to me about it.

He came to my place in Paraparaumu for a meal a few times over the years.

His family was fairly wealthy.

*

Graeme

He flatted with us. He liked beer and video games. He worked at Noel Leemings. He was very overweight. He was friendly and pleasant to talk to.

He was a smoker.

He introduced us to Haydyn.

*

Haydyn

Haydyn flatted with us. He worked at Briscoes and he also played World of Warcraft. He always wanted a Nissan Skyline. He was a smoker.

He moved out when he met a girl and then moved to Australia.

Graeme and Haydyn both knew that I was unwell. I used to socialise with the both of them a bit. They were good company and pleasant to spent time with. I actually spent quite a bit of time with them just hanging out and talking.

I would borrow Haydyn’s DVDs, and I would play games online with Graeme (I did this only a handful of times, because I couldn’t handle playing games properly). I would also socialise and hang out with Graeme quite a bit. Because there was no one else to spend time with. Graeme also drove us to a party in Hataitai, Wellington. The party was hosted by his friend Chris King and some of his flatmates. Chris King was my tutor from university and also a friend of Graeme’s from Tawa College. Chris King was a subordinate of Martin Turner at Victoria University. He used to lend me books sometimes: he lent me a book on LBOs, a book on LTCM, and one by John Maynard Keynes. I forget what else.

Graeme liked my cooking. Haydyn often wasn’t hungry at dinner time.

Either or both of them could have told me what was wrong and why I was sick and unwell.

*

Prayer at the flat

I said grace before dinner every evening. I also said grace before lunch on Sundays when we had guests. Sometimes someone other than me might say grace at lunch, such as Jesse. People sometimes looked at me funny when I said grace (such as Graeme and Damian). They were odd about prayer in public? “Saying grace” is when you  give thanks to God before the meal, thanking him for the food and asking for his blessing upon it.

I also sat in the lounge and read the Bible. Or rather I lay in the middle of the floor to read it front of the fireplace. It was the most comfortable place for me to read. It’s not like I was trying to be conspicuous.

Amanda and I prayed before bed every night (disclaimer: exceptions probably existed to this rule, but very seldom).

**

Brynn

She was Amanda’s friend. But she was my friend as well. We had sat together for two years in Japanese class after all. We didn’t know one another enormously well back in high school, but I liked her and we got along fairly well. For example, if I saw her in public (such as on the train) I would want to talk to her. She was quite likeable, and fairly good looking.

She came over a bit sometimes. She wanted to watch TV shows and DVDs with Amanda. She also came over to have lunch or other stuff sometimes. She and Amanda watched True Blood together. And also Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles together. 

Oh, I want to talk about the sewing machine thing.

Sally: What’s that?

David: Brynn was still living at home with her parents (mother and step-father) and she claimed that there wasn’t enough space at home for her sewing machine and other sewing stuff. And so she asked Amanda if she could store her sewing stuff at our place and use our place as her sewing room. She wanted to use our dining room table in particular. And so we said yes.

And so Brynn used to come over to do her sewing projects (she used to create outfits to wear to the annual geek convention in Wellington. It’s called Armageddon, and I think it’s kind of like Comicon. I have never been. I would have liked to have gone at least once. It seemed like it might perhaps be too geeky even for me, although I did want to go at least once). And she would sit at the table and sew. She would sew anime characters’ costumes.

She would also sometimes come over a few hours before Amanda came home, and then just wait for Amanda. I guess that she finished her shift at Countdown, and then came straight to our place. As for me, I would say hello and then offer her a cup of tea before leaving her to her own devices in the lounge while she waited for Amanda. I would quite happily socialise and hang out with Brynn if Amanda was home too. 

Sometimes if Brynn needed help with something while she was at the house, she might ask me for help. Like there was this one time that she was making a costume for Byron Mallet (her boyfriend at the time) and she needed someone to wear it so that she could sort out sizing and stuff. Pin something correctly. So I ended up being a clothes horse. Which was okay. But that wasn’t the norm. Mostly I would just sit in my room and read if she was over.

Brynn worked at Countdown as a supervisor. Countdown is one of the local supermarkets.

Her step father Barry, and her mother Marcia ran the local kickboxing club.

David: I think that is all of it for now.

Sally: Is that everything you want to say about your friends and flatmates?

David: No. Maybe I should talk a little bit more about Rachel Burston. I might also say some more about John and Lauren Cosgrove as well.

Sally: What do you want to say about John and Lauren Cosgrove? And what do you want to tell me about Rachel Burston?

David: I just want to give you some more details and information about the people in my life at the time. 

*

The Cosgroves

John Cosgrove was a year older than me. He had formerly been a Mormon. His family were Mormons and so he had been raised as a Mormon, and his family had gone to the local Mormon Church on Makarini Street. At the age of 13 he deconverted from Mormonism and became a normal Christian and also became an attendee and member of the CCC. Quitting Mormonism bothered his family and old friends quite a bit. It was actually a really big deal. The chief elder Bruce Scott was a big help to him at this point of time in his life.

He went to the same high school as me. But was a year older. I remember that when he was in 6th form he tried to evangelise Rachael Burston, without any success. He also had a mullet that became a skullet. He was quite religious.

He later went to Otago to study computer science, which he enjoyed very much. And he got married when he and his wife were at university. They just all of a sudden got married, while they were quite young. It was a bit of a surprise! They were the other young Christian married couple in our set. I liked both John and Lauren Cosgrove. Amanda seemed to like Lauren too.

He graduated with a computer science degree and came back from Otago when he was 21, and got into a job installing telecommunications cables. He hated it. And in the end he quit that job. But anyway, he often came to lunch on Sundays. Or they even hosted lunch at their place. He liked the card game “bang”. He went to church. And he also invited me to cards a couple of times, which was held at Nathan’s house at the time. We played cards or something and had ginger beer mixed with whisky and called it a Kentucky Mule. I didn’t go regularly, because I was unwell. I think we played 500.

I spoke with him about my health on a number of occasions. He knew that I was unwell. He knew that I had chronic fatigue syndrome. We talked a fair few times about health.

He told me that he had experienced something similar. In his case, he’d had glandular fever when he was young. But his mother had pushed him back to school too quickly before he had fully recovered and he’d had problems ever since. And these problems only cropped up whenever he was stressed out or under pressure. What he meant by that is that the fatigue came back whenever he was under pressure or stressed out. Strangely enough, the reason that his mother sent him back to school instead of letting him rest is that she just thought he was lethargic from smoking weed, not sick. But his family were Mormons, so maybe that explains it.

He had worked in tech support at the university. And he liked that job. I would like to recount to you an anecdote of his. It might be relevant. He said that he had an old woman come in for tech support. And she said that her CD wasn’t working. And now the default thing to do in IT is to try turning something on-and-off again. But this old woman was resistant to that course of action. So what he did is tell her to take the CD, install it upside down and run it for a while. And then pull it out and put it right way up again. His idea was sometimes the bits fall over, but if you put it upside down and spin it, that they will stand up straight again. The bits get lazy.

Or maybe the bits get dizzy and fall over? I can’t remember exactly what the story or anecdote was

I suggested to him that he read “Economics For Real People” by Gene Callahan, and he did.

His father is a retired police officer. His name is John Cosgrove as well.

Lauren and John had a retired police dog (German Shepherd) as their pet. 

In the end he and Lauren went back to Dunedin (Otago) because I guess they preferred it there. John also had foot problems. He claimed that the weather in Otago suited him and his foot better. I was sorry to see them go. They were both quite likeable.

They are now divorced. John claimed that it was “financial abuse” on her part. And that he is glad that it is over.

*

Rachael

Let’s talk about Rachael. I first met her when we were both 15, and a group of four of us went to the swimming pools. I think that it was Amanda, Rachael, Chris and myself. I forget who it was exactly. But I used to go to the pools a bit back then. Amanda used to arrange visits to the pools. Rachael was a friend of Amanda’s and so she became a friend of mine too. But she was definitely much better friends with Amanda. She was Amanda’s best friend in high school. Rachael used to go to Kapiti College, but transferred to Paraparaumu College in 6th form. Maybe I met Rachael at Amanda’s house, maybe it was at the swimming pools. I can’t recall.

Rachael and I had a wrestling match against Chris and Amanda in the swimming pools where Rachael sat on my shoulders and Amanda sat on Chris’s shoulders. Which I think was getting much more up close and friendly with girls than I had been up until to that point. As a Christian, I was probably supposed to avoid that level of physical contact and familiarity. So as to avoid temptation. But oh well, it’s relatively innocent.

Anyway, Rachael and I were friends.

In seventh form Amanda, Grace and Rachael all associated fairly closely. They were three in a set. And I spent time with the three of them. Two other people who associated with them were Jess and Jason. And Lachlan.

I saw a bit of Rachael in 2007 and 2008 as well. She and Amanda were still close friends. I guess now that I think about it, she maintained a presence in our lives for a fair while. She lived in Paraparaumu after all. She only left town in 2012 to live and work at a fancy hotel in Australia in Hayman Island. So I guess I saw a bit of her from 2007 through to 2012.

On one occasion Amanda, Rachael and I all played the board game “Cranium Whoonu” together while drinking. This is a boring story, but I had never drank much before and so we grabbed half a bottle of vodka left over in the freezer from when Amanda’s mother moved out and we shared that. It was 42 below feijoa vodka mixed with lemonade. I had most of it. I ended up acting silly and laughing too much. And couldn’t walk in a straight line haha. For example, I got up to walk to the bathroom, and then ended up veering off on an angle. So that was my first experience with alcohol (beyond a glass or two). It was fun. That’s just an example of us spending time together. I wasn’t well physically, but we were still capable of hanging out drinking and playing board games in the lounge at 5 Weka Road.

There was another thing. It was about volunteering at church. Amanda and I wanted to volunteer to help out with the youth group. We just helped out with one or two little things. And Rachel came along to a couple of things. She just helped out, just because she was there. Which was odd. Because she is just about the most pagan non-Christian person ever.

We just hosted a couple things, like having youth group people stop at our house as part of an ordinary Friday night youth group event. All they had to do was shift something like m and m’s (the chocolate based confectionery) from one end of the line to the other across a human chain using only chopsticks. That’s all. It’s naff. But no big deal. I tried to get more involved in the youth group later.

Anyway, she remained a part of our life until about 2012. But then showed up once or twice later on in 2014.

What else. She let us use her reverse osmosis water filter, to fill up bottles of water. Because the tap water wasn’t nice and buying bottled water from the super market was costly.

She still visited sometimes once we had moved to 17 Princeton Road. 

She and Amanda had a massive falling out sometime around 2013 or 2014. I suspect that it may have had something to do with me.

And that’s all I have about Rachael for the moment.

*

Lachlan

The next person to talk about is Lachlan (aka Lachy).

He was an oddball/eccentric and obsessed with Ghandi and peace. And very heavily linked in with the “peace” movement and anti-nuclear stuff.

We knew one another in high school. We actually met way, way back when I was 14 and my father was youth development coordinator at the Kapiti Coast District Council. But we got to know one another in high school. He was friends with Amanda and Rachael in high school and also he was a member of Amnesty International and went to those meetings (I attended a couple as well, invited by Amanda). Lachey had “asbergers”. He was odd. He and Amanda were good friends.

I saw a little bit of him on many occasions from 2007-2012 I think. He knew that I was sick but did absolutely nothing to help. He could very easily have told me what was wrong. Lachlan has to be mentioned!! He knew that I was unwell and he said and did nothing! He is (or was) a massively hardcore peace activist. You can look him up online. He is weeaboo for like peace and non violence stuff.

I think that he had massive problems later on in life with false allegations of domestic violence, assault and a few other things at the hands of some sort of malicious Iranian woman. Which just about destroyed his career. Maybe it did destroy it. Which is very sad, but there are many such stories. Women don’t seem to have any regard for the value of life (by that I mean, life as it is lived by the living, not life as it is lost in death).

I went to his birthday party back in 2008. It was a pretty well attended birthday party.

I visited his home in something like 2010. Amanda and I visited his house and saw him and his mother. Amanda wanted to have a good conversation with his mother about something or another. He knew that I was a university drop out with chronic fatigue syndrome.

We saw one another a bit while Amanda and I were living in Wellington also.

Lachlan Mackay was part of the United Nations Association of New Zealand. And he also worked for the Wellington Peace Movement, which is an NGO. We visited their offices once briefly if I remember correctly.

Matthew also knew him. 

But that’s enough about Lachey. He was just hanging about at the time. He was a mutual friend of ours.

*

Grace

I saw Grace a handful of times after finishing high school. I don’t know how much I have talked about her thus far. We used to sit beside one another in Physics and we socialised a bit. She was quite skinny and liked emo or goth music (or something like that, I don’t know the difference between goth and emo. I think that she liked The Rasmus at the time). I think that she had an eating disorder or something because she was so skinny. She also had braces and bad skin. And she also had cuts on her arms (which she covered up) because she engaged in self harm or otherwise attempted suicide.

On one occasion she and I were studying together in a tutorial room at Victoria University. I forget why. I think that she may have wanted to tell me something. This may have been in 2009.

She failed all of her papers in her first year at university (her first year was spent at Massey University). She was a screwed up person, psychologically. She has a lot of drama in her past, and traumatic occurrences. Her mother/s were lesbians and her father commit suicide and her brother died drowning. Something like that. I can’t remember all of the details. And she used to cut herself back in high school. She was a mental case, but she was my friend.

On one occasion she had wanted to kill herself (this was when we were all in our twenties) and came over to our house in crisis mode. I was really worried! Or maybe she attempted suicide or something. She just stayed the night and got some takeaways. Looking back, that might have been some sort of symbolic silly game. But I don’t know. She ordered green Thai curry to eat. But she claimed that she was allergic to onions. Outright allergic. But I guessed she just had an eating disorder. But I think that it may have been symbolic. This may have been in 2010.

  

Amanda and her had a falling out at some point. Or more than once.

I don’t have much more to say about her for the moment.

Please don’t forget that I was a Christian, and that compassion comes with the territory. So I had compassion for people, even if they were mental cases. And believed that kindness and patience were good things.

*

And so that was my social life.

Let us move on to talking about Amanda and then my in-laws and my family. I suppose that my in-laws counted as a part of my social life. And so did my family, a bit.