Welcome to True Writes, a website where I, True, sometimes ramble on about shit that I love or hate for the simple catharsis that writing brings, especially when random strangers validate my feelings by liking or sharing my rants.

Today I’m going to give you some hints and tips on how to really maximise your impending nervous breakdown. You think you’re immune to having a breakdown? Oh you naive little innocent. Nobody is immune.

For example, I an overacheiver of the highest order who spent the last six years working my arse to the bone (unfortunately not literally as there’s still enough padding on it for me to not break a hip should I fall down in a booze induced haze) in order to get a career, who was looking forward to 2015 being the year of being on easy street finds that the dream was not meant to be. Suddenly, my husband who’s had 15 years of steady work and a stable income (albeit without a single payrise in the last ten) is staring down the barrel of unemployment which begins next week. The solution to this of course is for ME to work… MORE. Which is bullshit because I’m not even sure I like my job half the time, let alone want to actually work TWO jobs doing the same damn thing when I feel like I’m faking it most of the time because of the total lack of preparation from my university for the real world and on the job training consisting of “Sup? Go work now.”

Then the husband doesn’t get paid. Goodbye mortgage payment for that week. No worries, super True with her amazing job that pays excellent penalty rates will come to the rescue next week. “Psyche! We’re the Government and we’ve heard you bitching about how much you hate Campbell Newman, our Goomba overlord, so as a parting shot we’re going to forget to pay you for an entire week with all those sweet sweet penalties“. Nice work Gubberment. Fuck you too, I’m glad that tosser is out but sads the Greens didn’t get more votes. Why don’t people realise that there are OTHER political parties beyond the Lying Liberals who are actually Conservatives and not a Liberal’s Bootlace and Labor the twits who can’t work out who their boss is when they’re in power and curiously fucking silent in opposition and who adopted American spelling and dropped the U in Labour. We’re Australian you fuckers, we incorporate all sorts of superfluous vowels. AnaEmia. Oesophagus. LaboUr. EncyclopAedia. FFS. We’re still a British Commonwealth, despite being born in Australia not being a good enough reason to get a UK passport or residency.

Yeah so I booked a second job. Which I haven’t worked a shift at yet because despite having copies of my roster and availabilities they seem content to call only when I’m already working, as though duplicating myself ala Michael Keaton was an actual option, or booking me to work only to tell me they don’t actually have an availability because they were relying on staff calling in sick and they didn’t. Who’d have ever guessed that’d happen? If only I could Michael Keaton myself. That would solve a lot of problems. I could duplicate myself and apply for all the seriously high paying jobs that I’m seeing on the internet while searching for work for my husband that I am curiously exceptionally qualified for and pay $30-40K a year more than what I currently earn that I would enjoy more. Ok, I probably wouldn’t but the money would be amazing and people wouldn’t shit on me (this one I mean literally).

So now I’m faced with the option of keeping my kid in daycare and forcing my husband who has the narrowest and most specific skillset into a job he’s going to hate and may end up murdering me in my sleep for, or moving back in with my parents and selling my house for hopefully enough money to fund a move back to Brisbane to escape the embarrassment of being a 32 yr old with a kid who lives with her parents. Honestly it’s not even the thought of living with them that’s so frightening, it’s the fact that I like to sit around and drink wine in front of the TV in my underwear on my days off and I won’t be able to do that because I’ll have to pretend that I’m a proper grown up and wear pants and have rules that my daughter actually follows instead of telling me to shut up. I’ll be completely found out that my entire persona, the grown-up with fifty-two university degrees (Ok, four), a real job and boss of my own house is a total fucking sham.

The solution is actually very simple. Make yourself feel better by drinking copious amounts of expensive booze from your wine club (that made me sound adult, right? Wine club? Toff toff I am posh) that you’ll have to cancel your membership to and watch revenge movies. Not Revenge, the TV show that inexplicably appears to be in it’s fourth season, despite Amanda/Emily having pretty well fucked most people up at the end of season one so you stopped watching because you could see them lining up the sharks.

What the fuck kind of promo picture is this anyway? Have we moved from Revenge to Revenge Porn?

NOTE TO TV WRITERS: Some storylines have a finite amount of story in them. I am looking at you Revenge/Once Upon a Time/Supernatural writers. Although I unashamedly still watch Super(fluous)natural well into it’s tenth season because watching those ridiculously attractive boys brood and be fucking terrible at emotions is kind of a sick thrill, plus Misha Collins steals every scene and Mark Sheppard could talk sassy to me all day and I’d never be sad again.

Look at our overdramatic cheesy photoshop! It is literally impossible to determine fan art from actual promotional materials anymore.

No I mean actual revenge movies. Like last night when I watched John Wick. Don’t despair because it stars Keanu Reeves and you think he has the acting range of a paddle pop stick. The Matrix was an overhyped heap of shit that was so full of holes that a time travelling naked Terminator made more bloody sense. Believe instead in the power Bill and Ted, the heroes of the 80s and early 90s that is responsible for a significant proportion of my most unprofessional vernacular, such as “dude”, “bogus” and “heinous” that make me sound like a relic from a bygone age. John Wick was the kind of movie I need more of, the kind of movie I haven’t seen since Liam Neeson became a bona fide kick ass action hero in Taken by single handedly murdering half of Paris with his bare hands because someone kidnaps his daughter. John Wick rains down death and destruction upon the always annoying (but probably very nice in real life) Alfie Allen because he nicked his car and killed his dog. John Wick was an amazing feat of sexy revenge featuring no gimmicks from recent action films such as shaky cam or stupid romantic subplots. Bam, bam, fuck you bad guy, you die. Yep, you too, Tits McGee, you two faced bitch.

And THAT is how you survive a nervous breakdown. Watch movies where bad guys are mown down with an elegant savagery that is almost shameful to admit you find attractive. Then practice your martial arts moves and kick life in the teeth for trying to screw you over. Then write a really weird stream of consciousness post to put on the internet that somehow requires you to watch lots and lots of repeats of Liam Neeson and Keanu Reeves kicking major butt. Suddenly everything is coming up roses.

Plus, you still have a stash of toff wine. Oh look, it’s after 5pm. Now I’m even socially acceptable.