2025 My Terrible Year (annus horribilis)
The behaviour of too many people is horrible, we are all in a dark place. It is not a fair gig. Too many bad things are happening, for example, downsizing is the new paradigm with many ill side-effects as people lose their homes because of greed and the misuse of money, many people are homeless this Xmas. Housing is not an asset, it is a human right. There seems to be no strategy to help this lost humanity, not in the capitalist system. Things will burn down around us eventually. Stupidity knows no boundaries and it knows a lot of people, the misuse of social media shows this. The Bondi Terror Attack of Sunday the fourteenth of December is another wakeup call to fix many things. The year of the snake was heavy and at times malicious, misfortune was everywhere in fires, floods, war, and famine. I feel overwhelmed by the passing year’s events.
I would have hoped for an uplifting conclusion to 2025, but it has ended so badly for all of us in Australia. The murdered people played across the ABC that telecast the memorial a week later and I lit a candle and put it in the my front door as requested. The hurt of the assembled Jewish community was palpable and reflected in the booing of our Prime Minister Anthony Albanese who will have to carry the weight of this violation. His task now is to legislate to change the story and call out antisemitism when we see it. Demonstrating in large noisy crowds where hate speech seems acceptable must be stopped. It starts with words, but it never ends that way. I have full confidence in Albanese to do the job because he is a decent man.
For me, I spent eight months of 2025 with a fierce psoriasis flare covering fifty-percent of my body, then another Melanoma comes out. Immunology treatment causes this by suppressing any skin cancer while the cycles are administered, till about a year after the treatment is stopped, then the serious skin cancers come out. They develop very quickly. The Nivolumab treatment also activates psoriasis. Early December, I had a ten centimetre line of Squamous cell cancers removed from my right-side of my neck, another big noticeable scar, more discomfort. The Melanoma removed at the same time was on my left wrist resulting in a very ugly wound, the sort that people actually blanche at when they see it. Accompanying a melanoma surgery is a graft site which leaves a red mark about a palm size on my left thigh till death do I part. I had one done on my right-side when I was twenty-three and it is still visible. Tinnitus caused by radiology became my awful companion who has made the sounds of silence deafening. I had a dreadful experience over hearing aids which did not work. Cicadas sing and ring in a rustling savanna in my head and will forever. Cancer is wearing me down, I am physically diminishing due to surgery. I miss who I once was.
Perhaps some want to believe 2025 was about a reset. I do not believe in divine plans. We have wanted to change the world about us. Most of us could not live without air conditioning, supermarkets, tapped water, mobile phones, personal computers, urban development, public transport, and so much that has altered our environments. Many want a natural world but much of that world will continue to fall to human need for space, resources, and cultivation. Too often there is destruction of pristine landscapes for greed, as in logging of ancient forests, and large-scale mining that can lead to flooding and mudslides of settlements. There is an inhumane element to it all and this reflects the carelessness in our social relationships. The same people who call for, ‘Drill, Baby Drill,’ for fossil fuels are the same ones who can exploit each other on a whim. I deplore the dreadful right-wing politics that has grown louder this year which makes slaves of workers and lessens the tax on the rich. Everyone has to be realistic, but they will not, because privilege often accompanies the fear of loss with it and the disparity between haves and have-nots grows every day. I have seen it all my life, the reactionary moves by conservatives to sensible social reforms like Medicare, Gay law reform, the Basic wage, Indigenous representation, and now more importantly gun ownership reforms.
Trying your best and still not succeeding, I have felt that pain, I am right beside you. I have had to battle so hard to make anything substantial in my life just to face a barrage of criticism. Too loud, too cheerful, when I was young and I lost so much freedom to people who wanted my silence. I have felt so much disillusionment this year. Disillusionment is a complex emotional experience that can involve several areas of the brain. Research has shown that when someone experiences disillusionment, the brain’s reward system, which is responsible for feelings of pleasure and motivation, may become dysregulated. This dysregulation can lead to decreased motivation and a reduced ability to experience pleasure from previously enjoyable activities. Further, disillusionment can lead to negative self-talk and self-doubt, which can impair the prefrontal cortex’s ability to make decisions and plan for the future. A double whammy for me as an autistic man. My sense of identity has been lost because of the breaking of connections in social relationships, career, and family. They do not understand me now. As well, I have aged out of relevance except for medical interventions. My body has become a tool to train medicos. I have accepted the life I have because nothing arrived to argue otherwise.
So, 2025 cleared the way for something, spending so much of it in bad health. Sometimes I feel like I do not belong anywhere certainly not in Townsville which does not have a great sense of community. My broken heart carries a sadness that I cannot explain. Accountability matters. Protecting my peace has meant standing firm and letting the idiots sit in the consequences of what they caused. They were the bullies I have endured, along with crazy relatives, fair-weather friends, the liars who made me the target of their miserable lives, and the sense of dehumanisation I have felt through invasive cancer treatments. Cancer strips away any illusions I have, I do not share in the same made-up reality other people believe they do. I keep going because it is expected. This quietest kind of survival happens when you do not feel alive inside. Is my life going to suddenly improve because a new year is coming? An arbitrary slash in the timeline is irrelevant when you live with cancer. I do not know what will happen in the year to come other than this is my third year of cancer treatment. Astrologists get life generally wrong, predictions fail, and no magic wand is available for me to command. More surgery is my lot as there are several Basal Cell cancers across my face including on my nose which has been already misshapened by surgery.
People say if you have your health you have everything, but I would dispute that these days. A lot more is needed to survive this polarized world. I will make something of what I have been given, it is what I do. In my bones, I feel that next year will be crucial in getting my vim and vigour back. Ageing is not a graceful act when you have a serious disease. The world remains a threatening place with wars and a collapsing ecosystem. Social media makes many people mean and frankly stupid. I am wandering in dark places like an old hermit with only his small lantern to illuminate the way. We are all in a dark place. To those of you reading this and spending the end of 2025 with difficult or failed relationships with your family. To those of you spending time alone, or are in bad places. Then you are okay because like me we survive the hurt and that is all we can do because healing is not about forgetting. Wishing everyone a Happy New Year.