The Rehab Diaries Part 3 – Week 1

Finally, we touched ground at the clinic.












“remind me?”  He quipped innocently

“kinda nasty.”
















Mark Latham: Mentally Ill and In Denial

Wow. I go away for a week and come back to just about ten things I personally feel the need to address, but anyway.

I don’t know a whole lot about this guy except that he tried to be prime minister that one time when I was a kid and it didn’t work out so well, which he blames – repeatedly, even ten years later – on everyone else in politics. Apparently he’s fallen into the role of a stay at home parent since then, and has been writing the odd column on the side.

So I guess that means Mark Latham is a mummy blogger now. And it seems that he’s discovered the click bait staple of those mummy bloggers that give the genre a bad name – establishing superiority over other mummies. Especially those who work, what up Lisa Pryor?  His titillatingly titled column for the Australian Financial Review “Why feminists don’t like children” has caused outrage due to his character assassination of the poor woman over her admission to taking anti depressants.

Well I’m not a mummy blogger but I can point fingers and cast shade with the best of them. You want to give out unsolicited parenting and medical advice, Marky-boy? You see nothing wrong with that? Great! Let’s see if you can take what you give.

Mark Latham, you are overwhelmed. You are depressed. You are grieving your lack of relevance and lack the distress tolerance needed to process that grief. You clearly hold sexist views so being a man taking on a stereotypically female role must make you feel inadequate. You want us to believe you are unemployed by choice but are you really? Who will give Mark Latham, best known for a spectacularly failed political career, a job? Getting Mrs Latham a job was probably easier.

You are not well and you NEED TO GET HELP. For the sake of those children who you apparently take such delight in. Will you ‘cop out,’ give up the ghost and sort yourself out to be the best parent you can be for those precious boys? Because people like you, people with issues who refuse to get help for reasons of ego tend to produce some fantastically fucked up children. A lot of people I’ve been in hospital with have fathers who talk like you do.

How do you think the boys will feel when they grow up, Mark? That they weren’t worth you getting over your misguided sense of pride and getting help so they could have had an emotionally stable father? Surely that’s worse than finding out that your mum relied on antidepressants so she could be that loving, present parent that you remember so fondly.

I suppose I should explain what led me to draw this conclusion.

Like most privileged humans you not only have trouble admitting that you aren’t bulletproof, you also feel the need to demonise those that do and maddeningly seem to win at life doing it. Unfortunately unlike most privileged humans, you an available platform to spew misinformed hate to the masses.

Let’s talk about Lisa Pryor. Respected journalist turned doctor? The woman is an achievement machine. And while I’m not familiar with what Mrs Latham does, I think most Australians are familiar with the works of Pryor’s husband Julian Morrow. Despite being having such a busy partner the baby maker has the cheek to pursue not one career, but two!

And you?  You’re unemployed. A house husband. A stay at home parent. For someone who is apparently so content and proud of your position in life, you were oddly vague in describing exactly what that position specifically entails.

Haven’t we been calling you crazy for years? Forgive the ableism, that isn’t the word I would use. But as a fellow ‘crazy’ I’ve noticed there are certain…behaviours that you have in common with the average left feminist behavioural therapy patient.

You were left angry with everyone after your exit from politics, even with the discipline itself.  Intensely so, years later. To the point where you allow your personal agendas get in the way of your career, when you might have had one. Does the word devaluation mean anything to you, Mark? How about dysphoria?

But let’s face it, escaping federal politics with your sanity intact seems to involve interpersonal skills that you don’t have.   For example: something you seem to struggle with a lot? Distress tolerance.

A lot.

Yeah. A lot.

That’s not normal, Mark.

And let’s talk about where you tried to create some precarious argument as to why Pryor’s depression is proof of a feminist conspiracy theory to destroy the family unit…um, that’s called paranoid delusion. Characteristic of a manic or mildly psychotic episode. Don’t worry Mark, we can fix that. Maybe you’ll find mood stabilisers more acceptable than anti-depressants?

I didn’t want to make this a feminist issue, Mark. I know you find such debate tiresome and it’s obvious that on an academic level you are out of your depth there. Let’s face it, that word was only thrown in so that you could do this:

He can’t stop, no he won’t stop

And hey, it worked. You’re bigger than Superbowl! But at what cost? Do you really belong in the public eye while your personality disorder is running out of control? Boundaries, Mark. They matter.

You can feel better, if you choose to. If you choose, your anger will disappear. You could stop feeling like everyone is out to get you. If you choose.

And no, by choosing I don’t mean just ‘getting over it’ or changing your attitude. I’m asking about committing yourself long term to questioning everything you’ve accepted as appropriate and necessary interpersonally. If that means picking up a diagnosis of clinical depression or a cluster B personality disorder along the way, so be it. Anything to be the best father you can be, right?

Ok, that was far too politically correct for your liking. Let me put that in a way that you can understand, Mark.