Patrick Melrose

I was going to put this in my Category of “Magical Monday” as I try to keep my reviews on a Monday. However, this television series…well it’s a televisions series and it taps onto various themes that are dark. I didn’t feel it very appropriate to call it “Magical”. I think this may also be my first ever television series that I’ve reviewed.

I decided that I wanted to review the series, but I really want to encourage people to find it and watch it. However, beware! It is about a wide range of dark issues. Suicide, Sexual Abuse, Drug use. Before I start to write about the series, I definitely should mention that!

Anything that stars both Benedict Cumberbath AND Hugo Weaving, you know is going to be a great series…I am very happy to say that it was!

The Breakdown

Patrick Melrose is a drug addict, alcoholic, messed up … well I’m not sure if he even does work. I don’t think so. It’s a five part television series, partly based on the upper-crust of English Society semi-autobiographical written by Edward St Aubyn. After the death of his father in the 80s, Patrick Melrose (Cumberbath) attempts to overcome his addictions and demons rooted in abuse by his father (Weaving) and negligent alcoholic mother (Leigh).

The series has a set of flash backs between each episode, but they are fluent and make sense. I swear that no one else knows how to do a mini series like the English.

Positive

This is exquisitely uncomfortable and will make you feel frustrated, but in a good way. because that’s what is suppose to happen. The whole premise of the show is to show how sexual abuse (especially when it’s perpetuated by someone you know) affects people, how it use to be quiet. How it was covered up, how people would never talk about it. They knew what was going on, but it was the “done thing” to do anything about it. The people I was watching it with would constantly say “Why aren’t they doing anything!” “How could you live in that kind of atmosphere”.

That is the what the show is supposed to highlight. It’s a dark comedy and you will feel uncomfortable. I have to say “Bravo” to Hugo Weaving. Being a huge fan of all his characters, I truly hated this character. I think it was very brave of him to take on this role. It would have been a difficult character to play and I love the ending of the series, because of the twist to his character. Think of Agent Smith, but even darker and much more menacing. I would be very surprised if he didn’t get a Emmy nomination for it.

Of course Cumberbath is superb in it. I would have to loved to have seen him play the role of the father. I know he’s not old enough to play the role, and I loved/hated Hugo Weaving, he was perfect for the role. I think it would have been interesting to see Cumberbatch as the father.

Negative

The only real complaint I had about it was there wasn’t too much of a warning about the topics in the series. For such a dark series and dark topics, I would have hoped that they would have had more of a “trigger warning”. They had the general age rating warning, but not about the topics.

I just felt like people needed to be warned before watching. There is so much going on with this at the current time and it’s bringing up so many issues. That people may be feeling particularly vulnerable right now.

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“Normal” – Trigger Warning

I’ve been wondering how to write this without feeling like I’m ignoring people’s problems. Oh! I will be talking about the recent suicides that have been occurring in the world of Hollywood…

I personally haven’t been reading too much into. I try to skip pass the articles if I can. At the moment, although I am not suicidal. Ever since I’ve had my anxiety attack, I’ve been finding that I am more…I guess,paranoid, about my health. If I hear something, I am convinced that I’ve got it.

The frustrating thing I am actually starting to feel “normal” again…Changed, but normal and feeling more like myself only very recently.  The funny thing was I only started to realise it a couple of days ago. I was just doing your average things and I realise how I hadn’t felt for a little while, it’s kind of starting to be forgotten about. Although I doubt it’ll truly be ever “forgotten”.

I just don’t like hearing about other people’s suicide. I’m here to help stop that, but I’m still having trouble with hearing about it, especially when it is just EVERYWHERE! It’s like every second article or statement is about one of them.

What do I do now?

I found out something last night and now I am feeling SO guilty. My baby brother (though he’s a whole person taller than I) lives Interstate. He not only decided that he wanted to come over to our state for his birthday (goodness knows why) Then again the other thing I found out might explain it a bit more. I found out as well that he’s been having mini panic attacks…Now I’m starting to worry that it’s because of myself that he’s starting to have them.

Although I don’t smoke…and I’m not a man

Have I been talking about it too much?

Now my partner is kind of making fun, because both sides of my family have suffered from anxieties. My mums side, mainly the women (as far as I know) around my age have all had issues, BUT, we’ve also “overcome” them. Or at least learned how to cope with them. My Dads side, not so much. They’re all addicts. They’re all still alive though. With numerous health issues, but still here.

I just feel guilty right now. I don’t want to stop from talking about it, but I don’t want to give people anxieties either.

I think that I’m going to buy him a bunch of fruit…Maybe some tea too.

I bought and sent him some fancy tea things with Chamomile.

Books and Our Emotions

Last week I posted a review about a book that had taken me literally years to read:I DID IT!!!

The reason I’m writing this post is because in my previous post, I pointed out that I had had trouble with reading this particular book for years, and I do mean YEARS. I wont get into too much detail about what happened. Long story short, I went through and was going through a nasty breakup when I first started to read the book. There we two girls who made my life a living nightmare and ended getting a lot of people to hate me. Without these people having a conversation with me.

The book ended up being too close for comfort, because a lot of theme of the book was this women getting attacked from all sides. Most of the attacks came from people she cared about and with no one talking to her at all.

The point of my post today is that sometimes this does happen and most of the time it can be very unexpected. In fact, there has been recent discussion over the last couple of years about even putting “triggers warnings” in the front of some controversial books.

Trigger warnings are important — and so are books on sensitive subjects

I think with a lot of us who like to read, we read to escape, and it can be very disappointing when we come across a book, that we were so excited to read and then realise, we cant’. I just want to tell you all:

IT IS OKAY TO PUT THE BOOK DOWN

Never ever force yourself to read a book you just cannot. It is okay to go to yourself “I cannot read that right now” I don’t care how much you were looking forward to it, or if it is really popular…Put It Down! There’s really only one way to make sure you start to hate to read and that would be to make yourself read a book you are just not ready for.

Its not normal?

I was just thinking about a lot of things that have come out with the whole Presidential debates in the US and the main topic that has come out, is about assault on women. One of the main things that has come out is against the women who have come out. The main questions have been:

1. Why did they wait so long?
2. What were they wearing?

Of course other women have been attacking these women, which I want to say shocks me, but it doesn’t. Women are WAY worse to other women than men. In fact, I’ve seen a lot of men standing up for these women and I say kudos to those guys.

As someone who has been attacked and the majority of those women closest to me have been attacked. I can answer both of these questions quiet simply.

1. Why did they wait so long?

The first question can be answered just from the fact that when these women do come out, they get attacked, and then in the same paragraph are asked the question “Why did they wait so long?” How can you attack someone and call them a liar, etc and then actually ask the question, like you’re genuinely shock. That once one women comes out, the others will feel safer to come forward. To me it makes logical sense, that these women feel more powerful when they are able to stand with others, ESPECIALLY against powerful men in the public eye.

2. What were they wearing?

This one irritates me a lot, for various different reasons. The biggest one being and simply put. As mentioned before I’ve been attacked and a lot of the closest females to me have also been attacked. None of us were dressed “sexy” and we were attacked by people we considered “friends” and for most of us, it was done during the bright light of the day and a couple of were attacked while other people were in different rooms. Rapists don’t attack you for what you’re wearing, it’s about power and it’s because normal people don’t rape other people. It’s just not a normal thought, for normal thinking people. My attacker was (I assume still it) bi-polar and refused to take his medication.

I think it’s what irritates me the most about the whole situation. People are not getting attacked for what they are wearing. People are getting attacked because other people do not have “normal” thought. Of course people are going to feel safer to come forward when they can stand with others. Why is this SO hard for people to comprehend?

There is also a third simple answer on why people don’t report. Brock Turner…The guy was CAUGHT raping an unconscious girl and look what happened. How much faith would you have if someone who actually got caught had, let’s face it, really nothing happen to them?

This or That? #53

This or That? #54

This week Bookmark Chronicles would like to know:

Do you think that some books should have trigger warnings?

I have to say that I 100% feel like that some books should come with a trigger warning, even the books that you know have your trigger issues in them, should still come with a warning. Even with some fiction books I’ve read, people have based them on real events or real issues. Take one of Jodi Picoults books. I love her and love her books, but a lot of her books are done with a lot of research and speaking with people who are experts in the field and people who have really experienced these issues. “My Sisters Keeper” for example, both the movie and the books. I’m sure people have gone through these types of scenarios before.

If you haven’t experienced a Jodi Picoult book before, and not realised how much effort and time she takes into these issues. It could be possibly be a very big shock to them to see so much detail and accuracy. Especially if you get someone who recommends the book as you are also going through the same issues, who may not realise how much of a trigger it’ll be.

Things that Grinds my Gears

I just wanted to start this post off by saying that it’s a bit of a sensitive topic and probably a little controversial.

PLEASE READ WITH CAUTION!

I hope Cee’s Photography is having a fantastic break! I guess this post is like sharing a part of my world. This post will give you a little bit of an insight into how I think.

There is something that I would have to say is my “trigger”. If you don’t know what a trigger is, it’s really simple to understand. A trigger is a subject matter that no matter how good of a mood you are in, or how confident you are feeling. A trigger is something that makes you instantly upset and/or mad.

One of my triggers is when a woman will say something like that men cannot possibly be abused or raped, because they are bigger than us.

I can’t even begin to tell these women what is wrong with this statement, and how dangerous it is! I know for a fact and through personal experience that most men already have issues when it comes to expressing themselves and this is why the male suicide rate is so high. You don’t even have to be physically bigger to rape and abuse someone. They can be drugged, for example. How many times have we heard in rape cases of people being drugged and completely knocked out at the time? You can’t fight chemicals.

Highest Australian suicide rate in 13 years driven by men aged 40 to 44 – The Guardian (March 2016)

As for not being abused because men can just “fight back”. Yes, I guess that some probably could, but that is not how abuse works. Abusers of any gender don’t start by hitting someone straight away. Abusers will bring you down mentally and spiritually, most of the time you don’t even realise it’s happening. Not all men are bigger than us (not that that’s important). What about men who are in relationships with other men? What about men who were abused by family members when they’re little?

What made me the most saddest about this trigger was I saw these comments, which made me set off was on a Facebook page for White Ribbon. For those who don’t know who White Ribbon is, it’s a cause in Australia for stopping violence against Women. I am clearly for stopping violence against woman and children. This doesn’t mean though you can just say “it doesn’t happen to men, they don’t understand” because I guarantee they do. It saddens me to see someone say they’ve gone through being abused, but according to them men just don’t get it.

I guarantee they do.

#ItsOkayToTalk