Issue 07 ✦ Brain

Letters ✦ Pū

The News ✦

Kawe Pūrongo

6

14. i’m neurodivergent…can’t you tell? ‘cause i couldn’t. Francesca Pietkiewicz

18. Rat Poison: How Ritalin Hysteria Gave Us

Our Inaccessible ADHD System Ethan Manera

22. Hearing Red, Tasting Blue: The Mystical Phenomenon of Synaesthesia Seren Ashmore

26. Psychological First Aid: A Youth Counsellors’ Crash Course Pippi Jean

Tīwae

31. Ngāi Tauira

32. Aunty Vic

33. Teaspoonie

8 Horoscopes

About Us

Salient is published by, but remains editorially independent from, the Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association (VUWSA). Salient is funded in part by VUWSA through the Student Services Levy. Salient is a member of the Aotearoa Student Press Association (ASPA).

The views expressed in Salient do not necessarily reflect those of the Editors, VUWSA, or the University.

Complaints

Complaints regarding the material published in Salient should first be brought to the Editors in writing (editor@salient.org.nz).

If not satisfied with the response, complaints should be directed to the Media Council (info@mediacouncil.org.nz).

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Editorial

Enter the Hivemind

Disclaimer: Some of the content in this issue deals with pretty heavy stuff. If you, or someone you know, needs help, we’ve put together a list of helplines to call on page 36. Kia kaha <3

hen we think of the term ‘mental health’, our minds tend to go to the extremities of poor mental health, as if mental health is inherently a bad,negative, scary thing.” - Chloé Hayden, Different, Not Less

Mental illness is not something new to us in the Salient office. We think it’s important to move past the Aotearoa-wide taboo on expressing your emotions and be vulnerable with y’all. Both of us have got some diagnoses. We’ve been to therapy, we won’t lie. There have been office meltdowns, tear-seshes, and manic-hours a plenty. Not to deflect, but the Salient team think that having been through shit gives you an extra special spice—that if you’ve lived 100% happy (in writing this we’re realising actually that’s most likely impossible), you’re boring.

As Chloé Hayden writes, for some ridiculously odd reason, all of us perceive having ‘mental health’ as this horrible disease. The amount of time people (mostly cis men) said ‘oh I don’t have mental health’ to Fran back in her podcasting days still astonishes her. Like, bro, everyone has health, mental and physical. You wouldn’t say ‘oh I don’t have health’. Have you never experienced an emotion?

In 2003, Blam Blam Blam said “There is no depression in New Zealand” in an ironic way. That was 20 years ago and nothing has changed. Fucking wild.

We’ve heard people say that we have a mental health crisis over, and over, and over. We are no stranger to pulling friends out of a crisis and to the months-long wait times to get counselling appointments. Maia has had four therapists— only one has stuck. She went through bouts of two to four sessions at a time before realising anxiety was not a onequick-fix problem. It’s a constant, daily battle. Having a regular therapist, and committing to looking after our brains, has been incremental to understanding our health.

The “Brain” issue aims to embrace vulnerability, and bring the different ways our brains function out of the shadows and into the light. As well as having focus on mental health, we take a deep dive into neurodivergence. Conditions that

have been stigmatised in the past are now making leaps to being understood. Getting a diagnosis, and having access to medication where needed, can be life-changing for a uni student. Access to these services has not caught up with demand, creating hurdles in the path to understanding one's brain.

In this issue, Seren writes about his synaesthesia—a state of perceiving where sensory pathways interact. Fran spills the intricacies of her brain, diving deep into how you can unknowingly be neurodivergent. Pippi talks to youth counsellors about the best way to help when you are a bystander to someone having a mental health crisis. Ethan unpacks the legislative barriers behind ADHD medication.

The Salient News Team is back asking the hard questions. Ethan wants to know why there is an epidemic of falling streetlights. Niamh is wondering why course readers aren’t printed anymore, and why did the uni delete their Twitter? Zoë attends the 19 Fired Up Stilettos protest at Parliament, bringing strippers’ rights into the light. Seren covers the end of the Eating Disorders Genetics Initiative study and explains what the research hopes to achieve.

xoxo Maia and Fran

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19 Fired Up Stilettos Kick Up a FUS at Parliament Protest

Words

by Zoë Mills (they/she)

CW: Abuse, Sexual Violence.

The 19 Fired Up Stilettos (19FUS) brought sex worker rights into the light last Sunday during a protest outside of Parliament. They called for legislative reform to protect sex workers from abuse, unfair pay cuts, and exploitation from employers. This includes changes to prevent a club or agency taking over 20% of pay from a sex worker, as well as banning ‘coercive’ fines and bonds.

A crowd of around 300 people gathered at Parliament to support the protest. In between speeches from sex workers and groups in support, (such as Queer Endurance / Defiance), dancers took to a pole to perform, accompanied by the Brass Razoo Solidarity Band.

“We don't want more regulation for sex workers… but people trying to make money off sex workers needs to be regulated,” said protester and sex worker Dylan. “WorkSafe needs to get involved. There's a lot of abuse [when] you're working for an agency or a brothel.” Dylan now works independently, after experiencing exploitation by former employers.

For some, the protest only scratches the surface of deeper underlying issues. Melody, one of the organisers, was number 8 of the 19 dancers unjustly fired from Calendar Girls last February. “I am tired of being reduced to tears by my manager, being power tripped, having a significant cut of the revenue that I bring into the club taken from me,” Melody told Salient. “It's prolific and it happens all over the place. I feel like my experiences are only touching the surface of what's happening within the industry.”

In her speech to the crowd, Melody warned that sex workers “kept the secrets” of politicians and government officials that are accessing their services, calling legislators who consume sex work but ignore demands to improve the rights of sex workers “both wildly hypocritical and deeply irresponsible”.

“It is your job to meet the needs of the people that you govern,” Melody said. “We are those people, and right now we are facing harm that is pervasive and deeply ingrained in the culture of our industry. Our employers have demonstrated that they are not interested in negotiating with us or even listening in the first place. In order for this harm to cease, we need legislative change.”

Green Party MP Jan Logie was also present and told Salient that the Greens are in full support of the campaign. “I think this struggle is central to our work around ending sexual violence,” Logie said. “As long as we tolerate exploitation in these industries then we're going to continue to have embedded inequality. It's time for that to change.”

Logie also hinted that sex workers would have a chance to advise on the policies affecting their work and pay, telling Salient, “We want to get a law and policy in place that they are involved in shaping and that they get to develop as workers collectively."

Photos by Seren Ashmore

Dodgy Streetlights in Wellington Dropping Like Flies

Words by Ethan Manera (he/him)

“We [are] a bit worried. It's kind of crap to be honest because as someone driving on the road I should be focusing on the traffic ahead, not the streetlights.”

Wellington City Councillor Tamatha Paul is the chair of the environment and infrastructure committee and said the council is “working hard to fix the situation.”

“We are really sorry for messing up... we're working hard to replace all of the faulty adapters,” she told Salient.

Wellington City Council have landed themselves in a precarious pickle after the city began raining streetlights. The 11kg light fixtures, which weigh approximately the same as a medium sized dog or 24 box of Speights, have started falling from their poles with a total of 17 hurling to the ground so far.

Earlier this month, Stuff reported a dodgy streetlight fell to the ground at a pedestrian crossing in Berhampore next to a group of schoolchildren. A parent who reported this to the council alleges they "didn’t even have the courtesy to respond".

After mixed messages from the council, it has now been revealed that all 17,000 streetlights in Wellington are at risk of falling due to faulty ‘knuckle adaptors’ that aren't equipped to handle Wellington's strong wind. Following an investigation into the dangerous debacle, the council are prioritising the repair of 3200 streetlights and have, reportedly, fixed 600 so far.

Lauren, a Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington student, lives near Evans Bay Parade and says she’s concerned after seeing many drooping streetlights while driving her moped home. “It was a bit scary... if one were to drop at the wrong moment, I’d be a goner,” she said.

While speaking with Salient about the issue, Lauren concerningly noticed an additional two poles on the street that were “newly light-less”.

Paul said a falling streetlight poses a potentially deadly risk. “Any object of that weight falling from that height would kill somebody... we are treating it like it can, and will happen.”

“If you see a drooping streetlight, keep your distance and report it and we will fix it,” she said.

It comes after all 17,000 streetlights in the city were replaced with LED fixtures in a move to improve the environmental impact of the lights in 2017. Paul said she's “glad that council tried something different but unfortunately there's been a bit of a stuff up”.

A spokesperson for the university said that VUW is aware of Wellington City Council’s “streetlight issues” and has “always proactively engaged with the Council when a faulty light has been detected around our campuses”.

“The university is confident that the Wellington City Council fault identification and remedial programme will be prioritised to address safety concerns, as recently reported,” they said.

Former Wellington City Councillor Chris Calvi-Freeman with a fallen street lamp.

Photos by Monique Ford for Stuff.

Uni Scraps In-Person Learning For Digital, But Not in the Way You're Hoping

Words by Niamh Vaughan (she/her)

After taking an unmoving stance on in-person learning, fighting a continuous battle against having lecture recordings available across the board, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington announced just before mid-Trimester break that they will no longer be providing printed course readers.

According to a university spokesperson, the “issue of printed course packs came up in 2020 and then again in 2021 as part of [a] compulsory course costs review.” In 2021 it was decided to make all course material available through Talis, and to begin moving away from printed course material.

The closure of Vic Books earlier this year spurned the university’s choice to not look for an alternative provider for printed course packs. Instead, students’ course material will be exclusively available online.

“This decision is not cost-related,” the university claims. “However, it will be cheaper for students to print their own papers if they don’t have to pay on-costs to a third party provider.”

The decision, however, may have negative implications for students’ learning. Salient spoke to a VUW lecturer with a background in English Literature on how the change may affect their teaching.

“I absolutely understand the financial imperatives behind this decision, especially as students are increasingly opting to use digital resources rather than printed ones,” they said. “Still, I do regret the decision.”

“There's real evidence that students learn more readily from printed texts than from on-screen ones. From my own experience, digital texts encourage a practical approach scan the text quickly and grab the information you want rather than the kind of slow, thoughtful, emotionally engaged reading that's associated with books, and is especially appropriate to studying literary texts.”

The university remains comfortable in its decision claiming that “most schools have already implemented the change back in 2021 or 2022”, and “this change should have no negative impact on student learning, if implemented well”.

Students can take solace in the fact that their digital material should not come at an extra cost, and in the coming Trimesters, there will be less course material to buy.

University Closes Twitter Account After Embarassingly Low Engagement

Words by Ethan Manera (he/him) and Niamh Vaughan (she/her)

The iconic year of 2010 treated society with many notable cultural moments: the release of the first ever iPad, Lady Gaga's legendary meat dress, and the Christchurch earthquakes. But perhaps most notably, 2010 saw the birth of Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington’s official Twitter account, @wellingtonuni.

However, the university’s presence on Twitter has seemingly ceased. The account, which amassed an impressive 17k followers, updated their bio earlier this year, stating “this Twitter account has officially closed”, and urging all curious tweeters to visit the university’s website or the notably less popular Twitter account of VUW Research Office, @WgtnUniResearch.

Just last month, Salient reported on the new VUW TikTok account, which offers thirst trap videos of the Vice Chancellor and Pedro Pascal memes. It seems this new social media approach has come at the expense of a Twitter presence.

To find out more, Salient reached out to the university, with a spokesperson spilling the beans about the mystery. Turns out the Twitter account isn’t quite dead yet.

Unhappy with the account’s low engagement, “the @wellingtonuni Twitter account will be relaunched [this] week, and will focus on promoting and sharing information about academic research from Te Herenga Waka,” said a university spokesperson.

The university was quick to throw their social media team under the bus, citing the change to the account to be “prompted by a drop in engagement on the broad university content that the social media team was sharing”.

In over a year, not a single tweet has garnered more than one comment.

The relaunched account will now be run by Te Kōhure, the University’s Research Office, with the social media team demoted to a supportive role.

The university reassures students that whilst the Twitter will cater to academics and professional people “over the age of 24”, the social media team will continue to “invest their time in other social media channels that reach [the] student community, including Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.”

NZ’s EatingGround-Breaking Disorder Research “A Great Step Forward”

Words by Seren Ashmore (he/him)

CW: Disordered Eating, Medical Trauma.

On 31 March 2023, the world’s largest ever genetic investigation into eating disorders (EDs) concluded the three-year long recruitment phase of their study.

Eating Disorders Genetics Initiative (EDGI) is attempting to pinpoint genetic associations with EDs. The study has the potential to change the way we treat EDs—which at the momentis lowkey fucking barbaric.

Led by Professor Cynthia Bulik, the EDGI consortium consists of four international sites in North Carolina, Brisbane, Denmark, and Christchurch. The investigation is funded by a large research grant awarded to Professor Bulik (and the EDGI team) by the USA’s National Institute of Mental Health. Dr Michaela Pettie, a VUW PhD grad, is also part of the team.

The EDGI study aims to gain a better understanding of the genetic influences on ED development, how types of EDs and other conditions may overlap, and find new ways of either treating or reducing risk for EDs.

To support this kaupapa, over 3500 patients who have suffered from anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and/ or binge eating disorders at some point in their lives completed online surveys and spat in a tube to send to the Christchurch campus of the University of Otago.

EDGI researcher Professor Martin Kennedy spoke to Salient about the study’s next steps.

“Over the next few months, the vast amount of data we have accrued is being cleaned of errors or anomalies [and will have] DNA extracted,” he said.

Genetic data will then be shared between international researchers and analysed for recurring patterns—a process Kennedy predicts will take most of this year.

“We hope to begin publishing and releasing findings by the first months of 2024. With such a huge amount of data, it is likely that we will still be making discoveries and releasing findings over the next several years.”

An estimated 100,000 New Zealanders suffer from one or more EDs, and many more have disordered eating.

EDs have the highest mortality rate of any psychiatrist illness, and the current state of treatment is grim, especially in Aotearoa.

In May 2022, Salient reported that ED services in Aotearoa were “reaching crisis point”, with a wait time of over 9 months for a new patient to access CREDS (Central Region Eating Disorder Services). At time of writing, the wait time to see a specialist dietitian is four to five weeks, six to nine months for individual therapy, and one to three months for a comprehensive assessment.

“Specialist eating disorders services, like CREDS, largely provide care for people who have more severe conditions and treatment is often provided on a planned admission basis rather than on an immediate basis,” explained Mental Health, Addiction & Intellectual Disability Service Executive Clinical Director, Paul Oxnam.

But unfortunately, the problems don’t always stop once you’re in either. Max*, an ED sufferer, told Salient about his experience in publicly-(under)funded treatment. “I had a severe psychotic anorexia, entered treatment on the brink of death, and was given a trainee clinician,” he said.

Therapy methods that are currently the standard practise—the Maudsley Model and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy—are either outdated or not ED-specific. According to New Zealand Eating Disorders Clinic, only 40-50% of patients make a full recovery.

Describing the therapies as “fucking brutal” and “almost cruel”, Max opted to leave treatment before he was ready. “Treatment was almost as traumatic as the ED itself. After a while, you just have to leave and live with whatever level of recovery you're left with.”

However, EDGI is on the frontlines of seeking meaningful alternatives. Kennedy is positive that the “outcomes of the EDGI study should represent a great step forward.”

“We feel a great obligation to make sure this work ultimately leads to improved outcomes and better understanding of eating disorders.”

For updates on EDGI’s research, visit edgi.nz

For support around EDs and disordered eating, contact EDANZ at ed.org.nz

*names have been changed

Re:

OPINION: Student Health is Okay, But Cookies are Divine

Words by Zeynep Todd (she/her)

CW: Suicidal Ideation, Depression.

The first time I brought up my mental health with a GP at Mauri Ora Student Health and Counselling, I was prescribed antidepressants within 5 minutes. My intention with the appointment was to discuss how to deal with intense depressive feelings and suicidal ideations.

Upon arriving, I was given a questionnaire with questions such as “How many times a day do you contemplate suicide?” and I was to circle one of a few given options. After the GP skimmed through the paper, I was told I was severely depressed. The doctor then asked me if I had tried counselling, and if I had ever been on SSRIs. I said no, and she proceeded to explain very briefly how they work.

I left the room just over 5 minutes later, flustered, more lost than ever, and with a script for an antidepressant I knew nothing about. I had waited almost two months for that appointment. I threw that prescription away and went to Mrs Higgins for a salted caramel macadamia cookie.

Two years later, I’ve come to understand a few things about Student Health. If you need, or want, to see a counsellor, book a same-day appointment. For me, this skipped the 2-3-month wait time (which is ridiculous and dangerous for a lot of students who desperately need help), and the counsellor I saw that day told me to come back weekly. I also ask, every time I book an appointment, what the earliest slot they have is (rather than what they automatically give me), which tends to be much before the initial suggestion I am given.

Another thing I learnt was to keep trying. It is okay to dislike a doctor and try again. You know your body and mind better than anyone. Trust that above the word of someone who has known you for the duration of a 15-minute appointment, especially if they make you feel uncomfortable or inept at understanding yourself. Do what is best for you, and don’t stop until you get what you need.

Need to talk? Find helplines on page 36 of this issue.

HOT TAKES

Do you think mental health services in Aotearoa are adequate?

Sam (she/her)

Geophysics and Environmental Science

No, I don’t. I just feel like it’s too long to wait and too much money to pay just for being well and healthy.

Lydia (she/her)

It's in shambles isn’t it. It needs to be completely overridden. It's just terrible… It's hard because we need more psychologists and psychiatrists, there’s a huge price barrier and the services just aren’t actually talked about enough.

I don’t have any personal stuff to do with that, but I know a lot of my friends have really struggled to get therapists and stuff, and when they do it’s really really expensive so… not good.

No! I think they need more funding, more staffing. Kind of more attention from the government that can allow them to meet the number of enquiries that they’re getting all the time.

HEADLINE

GREEN MP ELIZABETH KEREKERE FACES BULLYING ACCUSATIONS

Kerekere has faced a slew of accusations about her alleged “mean girl behavior”, after messages from a group chat surfaced, showing Kerekere calling fellow MP Chlöe Swarbrick a “crybaby”. It is understood that Kerekere accidentally sent the message into a group chat of Green MPs and staff, including Swarbrick. A source close to the Greens told RNZ last week that “she makes people feel like shit”, and that “people walk on eggshells around her”. An internal inquiry is taking place due to these allegations. A spokesperson for the Greens told RNZ that incidents would be taken seriously and that the workplace review would include a "thorough analysis of all relevant information". Kerekere has remained silent throughout these allegations.

PENIS DESTROYED IN THE SALIENT OFFICE

Turmoil struck the Salient office last week when Co-Editor Fran discovered pieces of a broken clay penis hidden under furniture in the office. The member had been constructed by a fellow Salient staffer during the Sex Week craft night just weeks prior. Fran found the piece of broken ball sack on the opposite side of the room from its initial spot, kicked under a couch. The rest of the shaft was discovered the next day. The sculpture artist describes the incident as “distressing”. “I worked really hard on that and the last thing I expected was such a malicious attack,” he told Salient. “The fact that someone has clearly hidden it makes me not really trust anyone in the Salient staff anymore tbh. I have no option but to suspect foul play.” The cock destroyer has yet to confess to their crime.

NATIONAL CANDIDATES ARE BEING DODGY, AGAIN

CW: Homophobia and Misogyny

National Party candidate for Taieri, Stephen Jack, has resigned after posts on his Facebook page found him in hot water. Last week, it was discovered that he shared a video onto his Facebook page containing the joke: “I like my Covid like I like my women. 19. And easy to spread.” Members of the public have responded negatively with calls for Jack to step down, and deputy leader Nicola Willis labeled the statement as “disgusting”. After a poem posted on his Facebook page came to light, in which he compares former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to Adolf Hitler, Jack resigned from his candidacy. The incident follows a slew of bad press for the party, after multiple incidents involving MPs and candidates have occurred in the past year— including candidate Greg Fleming comparing civil unions to polygamy and incest, and MP Sam Uffindel being revealed to have been ‘asked to leave’ King’s College after attacking a younger student.

SNOW LEOPARDS JOIN WELLINGTON ZOO

Wellington Zoo welcomed two new additions to the park: snow leopard sisters Asha and Manju. The leopards arrived at the park on 12 April, and now reside in their custom-built habitat. The construction of their habitat cost the zoo over $6 million, and has took over 18 months. “It’s been a crazy few days at the zoo, with hundreds of people coming to view Asha and Manju!” a Zoo Park Ranger told Salient. “They’ve taken to exploring their new home and catnapping on various rocks and the visitor center roof. [They’re] like very large, dangerous, and incredibly beautiful house cats.” Keepers want to assure the public that while the leopards usually reside in much colder climates out in the wild, Asha and Manju have been born and raised in Melbourne Zoo, so they are comfortable in a warmer climate. “Animal Care staff from Wellington Zoo have spent time at Melbourne Zoo with the snow leopards, and we have also hosted zookeepers from Melbourne,” Animal Science Manager Simon said in a press release.

milk & (m)oney: rupi kaur in wellington

words by takuma ohashi (he/him)

vibe: empowered, assured, feminine

rupi kaur first entered my life in 2017. not as a threedimensional person, but as her words. i can’t quite remember what features instagram had back then, but through some sort of algorithm i came across a poem of hers, curiously written in all lower-case with accompanying pencil art. it was a simple poem, yet powerful.

fast forward to march 2023 and i had a ticket to her live show at the wellington opera house. this was my first live poetry reading, and i suspect it’s quite different from the normal poetry reading experience. kaur started her performance by letting the audience know that we weren’t there to snap our fingers, but to make noise and to shout out our feelings so that she could feed off the energy and connect with us.

the first poem of her show was a hard hitter: ‘depression doesn’t knock’. one of her longer poems, ‘depression doesn’t knock’ describes her experience of depression as an unwelcome guest that snuck up on her, and the process she undertook to try to get better. some of her attempted remedies included the speed dating she went through to find the right fit therapist, the attempted session of meditation, and the exercise she was prescribed but couldn’t comprehend doing. in full narrative-arc style, her poem rounds out with an uplifting string of affirmations that she will “be full of colour one day”.

mid-set, she performed a poem about her experience as a migrant to canada, and the many sacrifices her parents made for her and her siblings. as i listened to her perform it,

my mind drifted to memories of two primary school classmates who were from iraq. during bible study on some wednesday mornings at my public school (in hindsight, more than a little problematic), they would leave class and go sit at the library along with any other children whose parents specifically requested their children leave bible studies. my two classmates didn’t deserve to be exiled from their classroom and treated foreign.

in 2022, kaur released an interactive poetry journal healing through words, following three poetry books published in 2014, 2017, and 2020. interestingly, ‘depression doesn’t knock’ was developed from one of her shorter poems in her 2020 book, home body, as part of the process of developing the interactive journal. kaur told the wellington crowd that her first book milk and honey is now the best-selling poetry book of all time, surpassing homer’s odyssey (a fact that this reviewer has yet to verify). her critics may brand her poems “instapoetry”, but none have ever booked out the sydney opera house to read poetry for ninety minutes.

some of her poems, including ‘depression doesn’t knock’, had tears forming in my eyes. others didn’t resonate with me, yet it was interesting to observe how much they resonated with people in the audience. while i only have the highest respect for kaur and her poetry, live poetry shows for this music lover aren’t a substitute for a concert (even if the price tag suggested they could be. i can only wonder what the kurt vile concert that same week was like). nonetheless, rupi kaur has been arguably the most high-profile poet of the 21st century, and she looks like she’s only getting started. i’m excited to see how far and how long her sun (and her flowers) will shine.

TOP TUNES OF ‘23: JAN-MARCH

THE GROOVE GARDEN GARDEN

Words by Xavier Farrow-Francis (he/she/they)

1. Radical Romantics by Fever Ray

Karin Dreijer has been the master of freakishness since the early 2000s. Their third Fever Ray album transcends this famously alien catalog by approaching things this time with a remarkably human charge. Karin is longing for connection, lusting for it, and they’ve found the perfect outlet on Radical Romantics. The album is filled with trippy, slimy, ready-for-the-club songs of queer desire and fierce paternal protection, with a few cutesy-yet-peculiar art pop cuts sprinkled in for good measure. The former Knife member just continues to prove they are one of electronic music’s most poignant figures across the LP’s runtime.

Listen if you like: Björk, Zola Jesus, Kelly Lee Owens, Jenny Hval. Genres: art pop, indietronica, glitch pop, darkwave.

2. Raven by Kelela

Born out of feelings of isolation as a black femme in dance music, Kelela’s long awaited sophomore album is a deeply atmospheric and hypnotic listen. Featuring lush synth beds and soaking wet vocal runs, it sounds as though you submerged a bunch of club records in the depths of the ocean. Thematically, Raven’s tranquil and aquatic palette serves as an encompassing backdrop for restoration and liberation… Identifying one’s adversities, and not only becoming one with them, but smashing them with a hydrated mind too.

Listen if you like: Solange, Sevdaliza, FKA twigs, ABRA. Genres: electro-R&B, dance, ambient pop.

3. UGLY by slowthai

‘U GOTTA LOVE YOURSELF’ is the mission statement for slowthai’s third studio effort. It’s a surprising turn into post-punk and man, this may be one of the most important hip-hop records we’ve seen in a while. As slowthai grapples with male fragility, vulnerability, and mental health across UGLY, it’s hard not to think about how new of an experience this album is for rap music. Oftentimes it’s agonising to listen to, but hearing a man express his raw emotions like this is both powerful and touching.

Listen if you like: Fontaines D.C., King Krule, Elliott Smith, IDLES. Genres: conscious rap, post-punk, experimental hip-hop.

4. Heavy Heavy by Young Fathers

This record has such an incredibly unique palette, pulling from the musical makings of West Africa to create songs that are so full, passionate, and alive. Young Fathers have created an album full of triumphant crescendos, culminating in a listening experience that leaves you feeling inspired and happy inside. It feels like being human, pushing through all the shit with a strong mind and keeping on.

Listen if you like: Algiers, billy woods, U.S. Girls. Genres: post-industrial pop, West African music, spirituals.

5. Girl in the Half Pearl by Liv.e

Chaotic, sprawling, complex: the innermost thoughts of a queer black woman navigating herself and her place in this world. Utilising an absurdly dense arsenal of sounds to soundtrack her longing and introspection, Girl in the Half Pearl is a lavish and jarring avant-R&B record that paints Liv.e as a dynamically creative artist. Its sharp turns can be disorienting at first, but embracing the erraticness is extremely rewarding.

Listen if you like: Pink Siifu, MIKE, Little Simz. Genres: experimental R&B, neo-soul, art pop, hypnagogic pop.

i’m neurodivergent. . .

‘cause i couldn’t. can’t you tell?

Words by Francesca Pietkiewicz

CW: Anxiety, Depression, Disordered Eating, PTSD.

Unlike Kylie, for me the indie sleaze-fest of 2016 was not the “year of, like, realising stuff”. It was instead filled with an abundance of awkward teenage firsts. My first boyfriend was probably horrified by the number of times I went silent on him (lol) or the one time I wore socks in the shower. I also screamed amidst my first kiss (who knew lips touching could be so slimy sensory— not me). Looking back now, it just might have been the first cookie crumb-crumble that broke the epiphany-biscuit that was 2022: my year of realisations.

After a year of wonders, phone call-pacing, and research (books, articles, google-rabbit holes, Instagram accounts, and TikToks), I can now confirm there is a reason why. There is a reason I am grimey Gunge Gurl, the messiest of all messy-gyals. There is a reason for both my swampy fog-filled brain and my I-forgot-to-shower stench. It explains why I’ll remember the exact date we met and the song that played in the restaurant we went to that one time, but I’ll still manage to forget my keys and lunch on the way out the door. There is a reason I’m a perfectionist and need a detailed plan of action for everything, and yet still leave all my tasks to the last minute. Each one of my work is produced within a violent hyper-active burst of reckless abandon. There is a reason why my writing feels like an acid trip, swirling around in circles, losing its way in poetic puke-paths, twists, and tummy-ache turns to eventually come full circle in mad-scientist type, genius-level insights.

I think I have something I didn’t know existed until a year ago: AuDHD. The co-occurring-combination-blob of bubbling traits that is having both Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). I’ve come to learn neurodivergence is a beautiful, mutant mix between a lucky dip and a children’s party goodie bag—you have no idea what you’re getting, and often, it’s a little bit of everything.

Apparently, my fascination with all things brain (psychology, philosophy, neuro-science, and mental health/illness) is a shared ‘special interest’ that many of us neurodivergent people have. I was unknowingly on a quest to unpack what was going on inside the Barbie PC I call my mind. Even my passion for astrology is a search to understand myself (and others). My Capricorn sun is not the only reason why I need a lot of alone time to self-regulate. Everything. Makes. So. Much. Sense!

Having both ASD and ADHD is something that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) didn’t recognise as possible until 2013. Psychologists are now starting to realise that if you have one of either ASD or ADHD, you’re more likely to have the other. According to a 2022 study published in Frontiers in Psychiatry, 50-70% of individuals with ASD also present with comorbid ADHD. Chanelle Moriah, autistic and ADHD person, bestselling author, and Autistic Advisor at Autism New Zealand, summed up its contradiction perfectly. “So, I'm autistic, and I need routine to function. But I also have ADHD and can't function in a routine.”

I’m 22 and undiagnosed. I can see how stating this to the world is going to bring up a bunch of questions and concerns. And first of all, to “you’re-faking-it”-Philip: why, in a world that consistently stigmatises and discriminates against neurodivergence, would I want to make this up?

Chanelle wasn’t diagnosed with ASD until they were 21, and soon after, at 22, they were diagnosed with ADHD. They spoke to me about some of the questions and comments they got on their diagnosis journey. “[I’ve gotten] this whole ‘you don't look autistic’ thing. So frustrating. You can't see autism. [When someone says] ‘I don't see autism in you’, that's because I was a 21-year-old [AFAB (assigned female at birth) person] who learned how to mask. You're not gonna see it. Or ‘aren't we all a little bit autistic, or a little bit ADHD?’. People think that they're being sympathetic. But no, that's actually invalidating the struggles that I face. It’s not helpful at all,” Chanelle said.

(she/they)

Being a self-diagnosed person brings up a lot of selfdoubt and discomfort for me. I consistently self-deny and discredit my own experience in fear of what people from both the neurodivergent and neurotypical communities might say. Hannah Waddington, Senior Lecturer, Educational Psychologist, and VUW’s Autism Clinic Lead, reassured me. “There's studies coming out saying self-diagnosed people don't actually differ significantly on autism characteristics from people with an official clinical diagnosis.”

Chanelle agreed. “Neurotypical people don't spend hours researching and finding out if they're neurodivergent. I've heard from TikTok psychologists saying that they've never had a self-diagnosed neurodivergent person who didn't end up actually being neurodivergent.”

The decision to go public via this piece has not been an easy one. My journey has been a rollercoaster—extremely healing and affirming, but also deeply confrontational and confusing. The bulk of the self-diagnosis process has taken a year, but questioning my brain has been lifelong. “People don't realise that you're not just seeing one or two posts and thinking, ‘I must be neurodivergent’. By the time people selfdiagnose, and confidently identify, they've almost always done a significant amount of reading and evaluation of their own lives.” Chanelle said.

Diagnoses are inaccessible. They’re extremely expensive, and as Chanelle confirmed, they can be extremely complicated and drain your mental energy. Larah van der Meer, Autism New Zealand’s Research and Advocacy Manager, highlighted that social media research is increasingly seen as an assisting tool. “I was at a research symposium last week, and the keynote speaker, a professor, said she gets all of her students to watch at least one YouTube video [made by an autistic person] a week to help them actually understand the autistic experience. Mainstream media is really not informed by autistic experience yet, and perpetuates a lot of the traditional misconceptions,” she said.

Another fun quirk that makes it more difficult for the world to recognise me as neurodivergent is the fact that I’m an AFAB person. Fun fact: the DSM doesn’t actually account for women and AFAB people. “Diagnosis of autism is still fairly new. And we can't necessarily expect teenage [AFAB people] to be acting the same as 5-year-old white males, which is what diagnostic criteria is based on,” Chanelle told me.

Hannah confirmed this. “Studies [have] found differences between those they described as male and female, in terms of presentation [AFAB people] will be more likely to [mask],” she said. This makes a lot of sense for me. Instead of acting on first instinct, I stay cautious and quiet, read the room first, and then act.

Brandy Shillace, an autistic writer, historian, and editor of the BMJ Medical Humanities journal spoke to me about how our society's deep misogynistic roots in the patriarchy explain this intensive masking. For AFAB people, there’s already so many social rules to follow, regardless of our neurotype. “AFAB people are expected to conform, not to choose. I honestly didn’t know I had a choice not to mask—not to fit,” Brandy said.

Chanelle said that this also seeps into the neurodivergent trans woman experience. “[What] I've also been finding quite interesting is that trans women also end up having the same difficulty, in terms of [masking and] late diagnosis. I think it is probably in our behaviour and the way we’re socialised,” they said.

There is a strong rubric that society places onto any woman, feminine person, or female-body inhabitor. We have to be passive. We cannot take up space. I think this is why so many of us learn to be good maskers. We grow up, regardless of our neurotype, knowing we have to fit the male-gaze mould. Otherwise, we will not survive.

A solidifier for me in my journey was finding Samantha Craft’s autistic Traits Checklist. Created by and for an autistic AFAB adult, the list covers traits that are often overlooked but relate directly to the autistic experience. I looked through this list with my mum. Growing up, an osteopath had labelled me a highly sensitive person (HSP) and Mum really clung tight to this one. She promised me that we were not different, shy, or awkward, we were merely highly sensitive. One of the clickers for me in this journey was finding @megmoxie’s TikTok video where she describes HSP as a profile of ASD. I told mum this, and we sat down with Samantha Craft’s list and could not believe how many of the traits we both had. For example, one of these traits is a tendency to overshare and spill information to strangers. If that doesn’t sum up this piece, I don’t know what else does.

There is no singular state of neurodivergence. It appears however an individual’s brain decides to wear it. Something that creates a lot of misconception about neurodivergence are ‘functioning labels’—the notion that someone can be high or low functioning. Larah said that we should move away from these labels, as they don’t accurately represent an individual's fluid experience of the traits, nor “their variation and the fluctuation over time and in different environments”.

Masking, I’ve learnt, is this utterly exhausting thing I’ve unknowingly been doing all my life. Quite often, people who are good at masking will be labelled ‘high-functioning’. But high-masking people are often extremely exhausted, which can lead to a lot of mental distress and bouts of depressive autistic burnout. This could be neurotypically-labeled as lowfunctioning. Masking is when you’ve learnt what behaviours are appropriate to share with people, so you stop yourself from expressing the ones that aren’t in order to seem normal and more palatable. I tell ya, repressing your needs, wants, and authentic self is hard. All you know is this constant brain fight, and assuming everyone else has the same argument in their heads, they’re just better at coping with it.

Thinking you’re just a bit shit at life does absolute wonders for the self-esteem. I can’t say for sure that my diagnosed anxiety and depression are an exact result of my neurotype, but I can confirm that living undiagnosed, confused, and intensely focused on contorting myself to fit in a neurotypical world has had a negative effect. Even my struggles with disordered eating in high school were a plea to make my body more tolerable and desirable to a world that seemed to reject my authentic self, regardless of what my body looked like. If anything, it was something I could control.

In her book Different, Not Less, Chloé Hayden writes about this. “Seventy-two per cent of autistic people also struggle with a comorbid mental illness, and disabled people as a whole are five times more likely to struggle with mental illness than able-bodied, neurotypical folk. Anorexia disproportionately affects autistic people, [and is often] more severe and long lasting. Similarly, girls with ADHD are four times more likely to suffer from an eating disorder, and more than half of bulimia sufferers are thought to have ADHD.”

A core part of admitting to myself that I am autistic was Brandy’s article in Scientific American, ‘Coming Out Autistic’. I could not believe the similarities in our lives—from the fact that we’re both editors and have an obsessive love for words, to the mutuality of being the ‘weird kid’ who wasn’t good at social cues. We both share the experience of not “obviously stim[ming]” and thinking that means we “must not be autistic”. We both identify as non-binary, which I’ve found that a lot of neurodivergent people do. Brandy told me in our interview that she just feels like a “brain on legs” and “gender [was never] a big part” of how she saw herself.

For me, I realised I was non-binary right before it clicked that I might be neurodivergent. I identify as Girlflux, which encompasses my experience feeling like a girl in a fluid sense. My femininity is queer and unconventional, often mixed in with aspects of masculinity. In some senses, representing masculine has, since I was little, felt more comfortable than the expectations that come with womanhood. Understanding myself as neurodivergent meant this disconnection and rebellion from conventional girlhood made more sense to me.

Chanelle, who is also non-binary, mirrored this, addressing gender as a learnt behaviour. “It’s partly because gender is a social construction. For me, I was being given all of these rules on what I'm supposed to do because I'm a [AFAB person]. And that didn't fit the way I felt. And I didn't want to adjust to those social norms. [As neurodivergent people,] we're not following the rules already,” they said.

I found the word for my neurodivergence in 2022, but 2019 was the year my journey began. I was in the midst of a pretty severe depressive episode after my first year of uni. I started researching and reading an article about depression and ADHD in AFAB people. My mum was worried—she didn’t want me to think something was wrong with me and assign myself a ‘negative’ label. I dropped it.

In 2020, I was diagnosed with premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD)—something Samantha Craft’s list says is common for AFAB on the spectrum—and started antidepressants. I was uber-confident, masking was easier, and lockdowns gave me plenty of time to self-regulate.

I had cracked the code to becoming ‘normal’, or so I thought. In February 2021, I suffered from a concussion and was right back at square one. Masking my sensitivities was excruciating as I built my brain back up again.

In April 2022, I was still struggling with post-concussion syndrome. My doctors were confused, so I went back to the drawing board. I turned to my friend Niamh, who has an autistic brother. She confirmed for me that this would make a lot of sense to me.

I don’t blame my mum for saying that having ADHD or being neurodivergent is a negative thing. In this neurotypicalfocused society, it is. She was just trying to protect me. Our family comes from a refugee background with an abundance of mental illness spread across us, born out of PTSD-affected genes from my grandparent’s generation. Mum didn’t want me to have another thing that made me different.

Yes Mum, this is something that makes me different. But it also empowers me to better support and understand my authentic self, AuDHD and all. It makes me realise that it’s not me that needs to bend and break to fit into the world, it’s the world that needs to change to accept and embrace diversity. The world needs to be more welcoming of all different neurotypes and the unique perspectives all of our wonderful brains bring. We need to smash down the walls of socially-constructed rules that tell us who and how to be. We need to let everyone be their own person, and learn how to accommodate and celebrate humankind, together.

How Ritalin Hysteria Gave Us Our Inaccessible ADHD System

CW: Drug Abuse, Anxiety, Depression, Bipolar.

Navigating Aotearoa’s ADHD system is a gruelling process. Last year, when I was in the trenches of trying to pursue a diagnosis, I was confronted with countless headlines that labelled the process “unworkable”, “a nightmare”, and ultimately, “impossible”. People on ADHD NZ Facebook pages discussed how expensive and inaccessible medication is. Online forums detailed experiences of year-long waitlists. For a while, it seemed a self-diagnosis from TikTok was the only option, and access to medication was out of the question. As more and more people struggle to navigate the futile system, discussion of New Zealand’s out of reach process is growing, but less discussed is why

Why is it so expensive to get a diagnosis? Why is the public system so often written off? And why must those who need medication jump through countless hurdles just to access it? So many of these answers can be traced back over 25 years to an era that ADHD advocates describe as being ‘overrun by war on drugs-inspired moral panic’.

In New Zealand, only psychiatrists and paediatricians can diagnose and prescribe medication for ADHD. This differs from other disorders (such as anxiety, depression, or bipolar) which GPs, psychologists, and occupational therapists can diagnose and treat. This makes an ADHD diagnosis extremely inaccessible. Wait times for an assessment in the public system can take years, meaning many have no option but to fork out hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars for a private assessment.

Katherine, a 22-year-old Law student, said they pursued a diagnosis after struggling with debilitating procrastination which caused them to fail multiple university papers. “Off the bat, my GP told me that getting diagnosed through the public system won't be an option because it's just too backlogged.” Katherine said that, even in the private system, getting an appointment with a psychiatrist was a major barrier. “I quickly eliminated all the Wellington ones because none of them were taking on new bookings, except for one [with] a waitlist of two years.”

After Katherine “finally found a psychiatrist that was taking clients”, they had to settle for an Auckland practitioner, and still, a 6-month wait time. As it was going to cost $800 to get the diagnosis, they said the financial barrier was “definitely prohibitive”, and had to take out StudyLink course related costs to pay for the appointments.

Alice had a similar story. Pursuing a diagnosis in 2021, she said she “definitely faced some barriers”, including her disparaging GP telling her it was “impossible” to find a psychiatrist. After spending “hundreds of dollars” and finally getting diagnosed, Alice is now on medication which she says allows her to function as a “‘normal’ human being”.

“Without it, I’m disabled. I do have the feeling that my life would've been different if I had access to medication earlier,” she said.

Psychiatrists in the health system are excessively overrun. It takes approximately 12 years of training to get qualified, meaning there simply aren't enough psychiatrists in New Zealand to keep up with the demand.

Words by Ethan Manera (he/him)

Medication is a key reason why the road to diagnosis is riddled with barriers. Methylphenidate, commonly known by its brand name Ritalin, is the most popular drug used to treat ADHD. It is also a Class B controlled drug in New Zealand, which means unauthorised possession could warrant 3 months imprisonment and/or a $500 fine.

To understand why medication faces such tight controls, you have to look back to the late 1990s—to a period that ADHD New Zealand Chairperson Darrin Bull labels as a climate of “hysteria”. Bull explained that, in 1997, America was overrun with moral panic about Ritalin “turning people into zombies”, and New Zealand media “picked up on it here very quickly”.

Newspaper reports from the time described Ritalin as “similar to cocaine and speed” and a “controversial tiger-tamer drug for difficult kids”. War on drugs fear mongering from the US soon became public sentiment in Aotearoa. Teachers called the drug “rat poison”. Medsafe claimed that “a new type of drug dealer, parents and children obtaining methylphenidate to supply to others” existed in the community, illegally selling Ritalin to those “shooting it up intravenously”.

Although there was no public data to prove these claims, the community’s fears of overprescribing and recreational abuse of Ritalin became widespread and were soon shared by many in the health system.

In 1997, Health Minister Bill English told The Press that “strict criteria should be followed where powerful drugs are being prescribed”, and strict criteria were soon implemented. Upon advice, English introduced new restrictions, making the drug “specialist only”. This is the system we still use today.

Bull said that “when those restrictions came in, they really restricted the community's access to medication”. Although we need appropriate control on the drug, much of the reasoning for restricting it in the first place was “taken out of context”. English’s move to make ADHD diagnoses and medication prescriptions specialist only placed tight regulations on treatment.

The historical fears surrounding recreational abuse means we now have an unworkable system. Bill English declined to be interviewed for this story, saying he “lack[s] sufficient expertise to be useful” to readers.

The Class B status of methylphenidate means Ritalin is regulated at the same level as MDMA. Its legal risk status is one class lower than methamphetamine, and one class higher than codeine and cannabis. 25 years on, little has been done to adjust the regulations.

Following her own ADHD diagnosis, Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick wants that to change. Swarbrick said the law change, which eventually came into effect in 2002, was simply a “knee jerk” political response. “It wasn't science based, we’re basically still caught in the framework that came into place back then. Everybody agrees that the current law is broken.”

In August last year, Swarbrick hosted a parliamentary hui with the Te Whatu Ora, District Health Boards, and ADHD-related industry bodies to produce six key recommendations to improve ADHD treatment and awareness, the first of which was easier access to medication. “The big problem that we’ve got is that all the health professionals are saying they're overloaded and don't want more work on their plate,” she said.

Swarbrick said an opt-in ADHD treatment certification for health practitioners could help increase the number of medical professionals able to diagnose and prescribe medication, but it would require a law change. Although she’s hopeful that new Health Minister Ayesha Verrall could be sympathetic to reforms, Swarbrick says that the government has been “kind of hands off” about change. “It's not a major priority for them.”

The issues plaguing our ADHD system are obvious, but it's less clear why such sensationalised claims of recreational abuse still dictate the tight rules around medication today. Although I was privileged to finally receive a diagnosis and medication, it took 5 months wait time and cost a total of $2880. This is an unreachable and needless barrier that many people couldn't get past. No evidence can be found to illustrate how widespread Ritalin abuse truly is. But the historical hysteria continues to restrict access to the estimated 280,000 Kiwis with ADHD, only 37,000 of whom are on medication.

CW: Adverse Drug Reactions.

Iwas gagged the first time I found out not everyone saw even numbers as warm colours and odd as cold. For my whole life up until that point, I thought that was just common knowledge. As it turns out, not everyone lives in my reality.

Reality is constructed in the act of perceiving. Our interaction with the corporeal world is purely phenomenological. Our absorption of stimuli, and interpretation of such, informs our unique realities. But perception is unreliable and highly subjective—meaning so too are the realities we inhabit. Who’s to dictate what counts as legitimate perception of reality? In some realities, a dark blue lies dormant within a B flat chord, waiting to be unveiled by the attention of the right ears. In others, the taste of apples screams and sandwiches sing. And in mine, even numbers are warm colours and odd numbers are cold.

Synaesthesia is a neurological phenomenon which intertwines cognitive lines of perception, re-wiring sensory relationships in the brain. When a person interacts with one sensory modality (sight, sound, texture, taste, temperature, pressure, smell, etc.) a second, unrelated, unstimulated sensory modality is activated. This gives the initial sensation an additional dimension. The simultaneous, dual-sensory phenomenon inexplicably defies conventional comprehension of senses—allowing synaesthetes to see sound, hear colour, or taste words.

Despite not having synaesthesia himself, Dr Patrick Shepherd has been studying the phenomenon for nearly 20 years. Primarily teaching in Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha—University of Canterbury’s faculty of education, Shepherd is a musician, composer, and conductor. He was kind enough to sit down with me and chat about his research.

“Synaesthesia is the new kid on the block,” Shepherd started. “In terms of the history of psychology, we’re in its infancy.”

The earliest recorded discussions of the phenomenon date back to Ancient Greece, where Pythagorean philosophers believed synaesthetic perception to be a sort of divine ascension, induced by engaging in intellectual masterpieces. Pythagoras sought to marry every musical note to a colour, endorsed the concept of spherical sound, and proposed that astrological placement of celestial bodies could orchestrate “a symphony of universal harmony”. It is believed that the order of menus was informed by gustatory (taste) synaesthesia. The word ‘synaesthesia’ is derived from Greek, and translates to “union of the senses”.

As behaviourism crept in and began to occupy the Psychology discipline in the 1930s, synaesthesia’s lack of apparent observability meant that it was quickly dismissed—and so were patients. In this time, it was possible for synaesthetes to get misdiagnosed with schizophrenia or drug addiction, and be subsequently institutionalised. It wasn’t until the invention of MRIs in the 1990s, and the subsequent ability to physically see ‘cross activation’ in the brain that synaesthesia was officially proven.

Though it’s still not entirely certain how common synaesthesia is, statistics suggest that up to 4% of the general population have at least one type—including the likes of Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Frank Ocean, Lorde, Billy Joel, Brendon Urie, Billie Eilish, Frank Iero, Charli XCX, and K*nye W*st.

Physiologically, synaesthesia occurs as a result of increased brain connectivity. In synaesthetes, an increased volume or mismatched placement of neural pathways permit various regions of the brain to communicate with each other.

Previously, researchers believed that AFAB people were more likely to develop synaesthesia. But Shepherd said this is being debunked. The disparity between sexes was originally thought to be genetic. In recent years, it has revealed itself to be social, lying in the fact that “[cis] guys tend not to talk about this kind of thing, because [they think] it’s a bit embarrassing.”

Words by Seren Ashmore (he/him)

Four main characteristics are used to indicate synaesthesia; presence since childhood, consistency over time, vividness, and automatic and involuntary occurrence. Evidence also indicates that synaesthesia has a genetic component, and is often inherited. “[Synaesthesia] can’t be cured, because it’s not a disease, it’s a neurological condition. It’s the way you’re put together,” Shepherd explained.

The experience of synaesthesia doesn’t appear as an externally-projected hallucination, but an innate, immediate sense of knowing. There are estimated to be about 80 different types of synaesthesia, all denoting altered processing in various sensory modalities—visual, spatial, tactile, olfactory, gustatory, kinesthetic, colour, characterisation, geometric, and more. The most common type, accounting for about 69% (nice) of synaesthetes, is colour-grapheme (association of colours to letters and numbers).

Shepherd foregrounded that synaesthetes’ associations are not prescribed. The experience of synaesthesia differs from poetic, metaphorical interactions with sensation— the way melancholy might be described as “feeling blue”, or anger as “seeing red”. Instead, a synaesthete’s percept is an immediate, involuntary reaction to stimuli. Colours I associate with letters and numbers don’t reflect a meaning. My partner’s initials aren't derived from her favourite colour, and my address number isn’t based on the way it looks on my letterbox. The number three has maintained its green before and after I watched the pink number three on Numberjacks bounce around the TV screen every morning.

As Shepherd put it, synaesthetic associations are “weird”. We don’t know what causes certain colours to be associated with certain characters, and Shepard said, “it’s definitely not that you had coloured alphabet magnets on the fridge when you were a kid.”

I’ve never consciously assigned colours to letters and numbers—simply as long as I can remember, I’ve perceived them this way. I don’t even like the colours I associate. Seeing the palette all together is nauseating. Even the mild-mannered terracotta orange and emerald green cannot protect my (mind’s) eye from all that garish, plummy magenta.

When two potent-coloured characters collide, as is in 25, they can take on an independent, allied colour. Individually, 2 is a burnt terracotta and 5 is the desaturated mid-blue of my

brother’s childhood kiddie couch. But together, they adapt to inhabit a vibrant, warm yellow and a cyan akin to the bright mid-blue in the Faber Castell Connector felt tip 20-pack. The greens of S and T on their own produce an additional baby pink when combined and elicit impressions of flowers, giving Flora from Winx Club

A non-synaesthete can experience synaesthesia through the influence of hallucinogens. However, Shepherd affirmed that it’s temporary, lasting only “as long as the drugs are in your system.” There is currently no research that suggests it’s possible to have a trip that causes permanent synaesthesia in non-synaesthetes.

However, for people that already have synaesthesia, psychoactive substances can have an atypical effect. For me, that’s the heightened-sensation, greening-outpurely-from-overstimulation kind. I quickly realised drugs weren’t for me when weed would make my friends giggle and want a little snack, while I was in the other room recreating The Last Mimzy.

Growing up, I only ever remember having colourgrapheme synaesthesia. But after getting (monstrously) high a few times as a teenager, I swear I’ve unlocked new pathways in my already hyper-connected brain. How a badly-rolled high schooler joint made from a stale, overpriced tinny can send me fully out-of-body, drawing symbols, and hallucinating iridescent geometric colours in the sky, I don’t know. Marilyn Monroe’s husband described her synaesthesia as being a “displacement of the senses which others take drugs to find”. Boy, do I feel that.

Synaesthetes’ simultaneous sensory stimulation subverts the assumption that senses are inherently and necessarily segregated, complicates the lines where those distinctions are conventionally drawn, and displays the potential of the human sensory experience.

Quoted in The New Yorker, Synaesthesiologist Richard Cytowic believes that researching synaesthesia has caused a paradigm shift. “Perception may be due for a redefinition.” Subversion from the neuro-norm has the power to disrupt the naturalisation of neurotypical realities, and challenge what are considered to be healthy, legitimate perceptions and ways of living.

As Shepherd said, “The main thing is that synaesthesia is real—it’s not freaky, just a way of seeing the world.”

A Youth Counsellors’ Crash Course

CW: Panic Attacks, Anxiety, Self-Harm.

Ever had a friend in a mental health crisis and asked, “How can I help?” I interviewed a peer supporter, a helpline counsellor, and a clinical psychologist. Here’s some of their tips on my two questions: how do you help someone having a panic attack in public, and how do you respond when a friend vents to you?

This is sort of a crash-course how-to what-do, so let’s get right on down to business.

What would you do if you saw someone having a panic attack in public?

Most panic attacks last between 5-20 minutes, but some last up to an hour. Physical signs can include sweating, trembling or shaking, and hyperventilation—the person affected could struggle to breathe or talk. Other symptoms might include nausea, chills, chest pain, a racing heart, a choking or smothering sensation, and feelings of terror. Panic attacks can be stressor or trigger related, and can be caused by disorders, phobias, or other conditions.

DISCLAIMER: A panic attack can present similarly to a heart attack. Symptoms may be signs of other conditions or physical events. If the person affected has no history of panic attacks, and has extreme difficulty breathing or loses consciousness, treat the situation as a medical emergency.

If you’re sure someone is having a panic attack (and they want your help):

Ask what they need

“We're taught asking consent from the person if they want to be touched, asking if they want to step out, asking if they want us to sit and listen with them,” says Ezra Jones-Moki, Bubble Student Leader and Māori and Pasifika Equity Project Leader, from Manawa Ora—Student Wellbeing. If this scenario happens to a Bubble leader on shift, the protocol is for one person to divert attention while another guides the affected person to a safe place. “Respect their privacy. Ask them what they need. If they need space, that’s cool. It’s all dependent on permission.”

Words by Pippi Jean (she/her)

Remove them from the trigger, if possible.

“Get them out of the place that they were in. It's a situation selection type thing,” says Aziza Bakieva, Helpline Counsellor at Youthline and Victim Advisor at the Ministry of Justice. Although—she goes on—panic attacks don’t always happen as a result of something around you. They can be triggered from a thought, which is more difficult to escape from. “But it could be something tiny [in the environment]. In which case, getting them away from that space and changing what they can see can be really important.”

Remain calm. Don’t react with stress. Reassure the person they’re safe.

“The first thing I teach people about anxiety is it's there to protect you,” says Kris Garstang, clinical psychologist and Project Manager at Piki, a counselling and peer support program for 18-25-year-olds in the Greater Wellington region. A client suffering from panic attacks might worry a sudden attack might hurt them, make them faint, or embarrass themselves in public. She reminds them not to meta-stress over their already stressy and very natural flight-or-flight response. Modern problems require ancestral solutions, I guess. “Even though [during a panic attack] it feels like the world's about to spin off its axis or something really awful is about to happen, that's not the case. You’re safe.”

Practise diaphragmatic breathing and grounding techniques.

To ‘slow down’ the body’s physiological response, Kris recommends breathing slowly and deeply—into your stomach, not your chest. “Adrenaline is pumping, the heart's pumping… you just want to get the person to take their foot off the accelerator pedal.”

Aziza expands on this. She recommends counting breaths tohelp redirect focus. “You could say, ‘Okay, I’m going to breathe in for four and out for four.’” If the person affected allows, you may lead this process. “You could count with them, so they focus on the counting as well as you breathing with them.”

“Don’t crowd the person,” Ezra says. Other grounding techniques include mindfulness practices. I tell them about one I learned, where you ask someone to tell you three things they can see, hear, and feel. They agree this can be useful—more for prevention than intervention, because, in a crisis, most people already know their own self-soothing techniques. “As a peer supporter, your priority is less about treatments and more making sure they’re in a safe space.”

How do you respond properly when a friend vents to you?

Venting is an act of trust. You might think of venting as a DMC in a quiet corner of a party. It’s usually defined as the sudden letting out of negative emotions after suppression. If someone is venting to you, your role is to comfort and soothe the speaker. Everyone should be able to provide this emotional support to their friends, regardless of your training.

DISCLAIMER: Venting is healthy, but sometimes it can be harmful for the person on the receiving end. Even though being vented to is an act of trust, it shouldn’t feel like an obligation, and no one person can be expected to give all the right answers. If someone is only venting to you, encourage them to seek other listeners too.

If someone is venting to you:

Listen first.

“You know how people vent and vent sometimes, and you think, ‘Why aren't they stopping?’” Kris asks. “It’s because that person hasn't heard that you've heard them.” Offering advice should come second to letting a person know their emotional response is valid to the situation. Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) proposes a counsellor use validation strategies like saying, “oh, that sounds awful”, or “I feel that sometimes too”, instead of advancing immediately to practical solutions. Kris adds, “Until a person really feels that you get them, that they feel heard by you, they’re not really ready to make changes to what’s going on.”

Know when to keep it confidential.

It’s easy to say you should protect the privacy of someone venting to you at all times. But recommending they talk to another person shouldn’t be a breach of trust.

“Especially in the scenario where you're not trained… sometimes we need to understand when to refer people to other services,” Ezra says. They take me through the ‘harm’ checklist as a peer supporter. Are they going to harm themselves? Are they going to harm you? Another person? “And that's sort of when we get into, okay, we're in a situation where we need someone else to step in.”

Set boundaries.

Setting boundaries with someone who’s asking you for help can be hard. “It’s okay to tell someone, ‘I’m really sorry, but I just don't have the capacity for this right now’,” says Aziza. Self-care is an important part of being vented to—if you’re not in the right headspace yourself, you may not know what you’re projecting onto the other person.

While you’re being vented to, you might feel expected to remember every detail. You might mentally ‘take notes’ away with you afterward to try and solve their problems yourself. But afterward, Aziza recommends “shredding your notes”. What this means, she clarifies, is to let yourself worry for the duration of a bus trip, then to stop at your stop. This doesn’t make you less empathetic. An effective counsellor will take time out from counselling. “When I started, I was taking it home all the time. Now what I've started doing is going home and trying to leave everything outside.”

Here are some extra resources you can check out:

Youthline provides mental health support to Kiwis aged 12-24. Free call 0800 376 633, free text 234, or webchat is available 24/7. Youthline also offers free face-to-face counselling.

Piki is a therapy, counselling, and peer support program for rangatahi aged 18-25 in the Greater Wellington region. Piki is funded by Te Whatu Ora and is available at Mauri Ora.

The Bubble is a physical well-being space based in the Student Union building. This acts as the hub for Manawa Ora Student Wellbeing, a Victoria University service under the umbrella of Te Pūrengi, Student Experience and Wellbeing. The Manawa Ora team facilitates Health Promotion programmes (peer support, student co-designed resources and internships), Rainbow and Inclusion, and refugee-background programmes. Check them out at @manawaorastudentwellbeing on Insta.

What Sensory Support Are You?

How do you start your day?

a) With an iced coffee and a journal entry.

b) By pumping my favourite tunes to get me out of bed.

c) Checking my phone and scrolling TikTok for an hour lol.

d) Getting cosy and watching my comfort show while eating breakfast.

The perfect Saturday night is?

a) 2 for 1 Chow cocktails with my best gals before a night of absolute shambles in town.

b) Going to a rave or a house gig and getting down with the boys.

c) A potluck-craft-clothes swap-board game night (and potentially edibles) with my favourite people.

d) Pizza and a movie marathon with my flatmates and our cat. Plenty of snacks.

What do you study?

a)Bachelor of Business

b) Bachelor of Music

c) Bachelor of Arts

d) Bachelor of Science

Mostly As: Fidget Jewellery

You are the shiniest of clean gals. Sleek, put-together, and unobtrusive. If you were a sensory support, you’d definitely be something stylish and dependable, pairable with each and every utility skirt, hoops, and Doc platform sandals. Fidget jewellery comes in all shapes and sizes to blend in with every outfit. It takes the stress out of public stimming. It’s the most discreet sensory support out there.

Mostly Bs: Headphones

Your go-to stress relief is bumping to the best beats and tuning out to the noises of the outside world. Invest in a pair of high-qual noise cancelling headphones that sit comfortably atop all your piercings and drown out the noise inside your head with the same comfort album you listen to over and over. Also, I love that you somehow manage to match them to your outfit!

How would you describe your style?

a) Sleek and sophisticated. Neutral tones, statement jewellery, b&w dunks, and a stylish bag.

b) Funky fresh. 90s DJ vibes, colourful fluffy hat, JNCO-style jeans, a tank.

c) Lace and layers. Y2K does 70s energy, platforms, legwarmers, and vibrant makeup.

d) Cosy chic. My favourite fleece or jersey, platform sneakers, and carpenter pants with a heap of pockets for all my trinkets.

The perfect Sunday is?

a) Brunch, mimosas, and shopping.

b) Making beats and a sesh.

c) Pinterest, drawing, writing, or crocheting.

d) Making a plan for my week so I don’t forget all my appointments.

Pick a random neurodivergent celebrity duo?

a) Jennifer Aniston & Cher

b) Jimi Hendrix & Matty Healy

c) Chloé Hayden & David Byrne

d) Billie Ellish & Kurt Cobain

Mostly Cs: Stim Toys

You are funny and funky, and giving the ultra Aquarius energy of Phoebe from Friends. You are constantly hit with intense waves of inspiration and excitement, which can lead to being overwhelmed. Make sure you’ve packed your favourite stim toy (tangle toy, fidget spinner, or push pop) to help channel all that wonderful chaotic energy. Don’t tone down for anyone, my friend!

Mostly Ds: Weighted Blankets

You are comfy, cosy, kind, and dependable. Your presence immediately calms a room, and your friends feel at ease with you. Your sensory support of choice is a weighted blanket, immediately soothing any worries with the reassurance of a wrap-around hug and a cosy temperature. Grab a peppermint tea and hibernate from the world, but keep making those plans for when you re-emerge into the social world again.

Words by The Salient Quizzard (quiz/quizzle)

P ODCASTS

BRAINWAVES: SMOOTH BRAIN SOCIETY

Words by Sahir Hussain (he/him) and Alex Marinkovich-Josey (he/him)

You can’t have an issue on the brain without input from Smooth Brain Society. We’re a psychology-focused podcast that tries to make the field more accessible. Scientific research is far from sexy, so this podcast helps bring forward all the cool work people do and disprove Maria Mitchell saying "knowledge which is popular is not scientific". In a world with endless information available to us at all times, we want to go straight to the source. We talk to experts in the field about their work, what the research tells us, and what things we need to weary of when we see clickbait titles about miracle cures.

Making science attractive in hour-long episodes is pretty hard, so we decided to start with psychology and neuroscience related fields. This immediately makes things interesting by trying to understand the entire human experience, unboxing the plethora of ways in which researchers conceptualise the brain. A relationship researcher would remind you that the brain is what makes one fall in love—the heart can only cause erections. A neurochemist would look at the brain and see how the cells talk to each other in ways that make us human and make each person unique. A developmental researcher would look at how the brain’s development links to behaviour, while cognitive researchers would look at specific brain regions and how we perceive the world.

In our most recent episode, we talked to neuropsychologist Dr Caroline Wilshire. Dr Wilshire spoke to the mismatch between the causes of depression and its current treatments. Her work highlights how damage or dysfunction to certain areas of the brain can produce symptoms of depression and be diagnosed as such, but the treatments don't work. In her words, "you cannot talk yourself out of something you didn’t talk yourself into.” There is a need for not only broadening research, but also increasing awareness about health issues to lead to the best possible outcomes for everyone.

You can check out that episode now, wherever you get your podcasts, and keep an eye out for these other excellent episodes sure to wrinkle your brain.

Being Creative

What do we mean when someone is creative?

Professor Vlad Glaveanu from Dublin City University video called us to talk about his work with creativity, imagination, culture, societal changes, and possibility. We cover the factors useful to creativity, types of creative identities, creativity and culture, and Prof Vlad's recent work on possibility and researching memes.

“From a cognitive approach and somatic networks, when you combine concepts that are very separate, for instance ice-cream and zebras, that connection is going to have to be creative and more cognitively challenging! Our brains cluster directly related concepts together more easily.” - Professor Vlad Glaveanu.

Mental Health Awareness Special With Youthline, Bravely and Jasmin Shoukri

Rob Cartwright joined us to speak about Bravely, a global mental health app trying to bridge the gap between therapy and 'just using Google'. We also talk to Jasmin Shoukri, a mental health coach in Germany, who spoke about the similarities and differences between support work in New Zealand and Germany, before talking about her own coaching. Lastly, we come back to the studio with Abbey Busch, the Education and Youth Development Coordinator of Youthline Wellington, to talk about the services they offer for youth mental health support work in Wellington and Aotearoa.

How to stop a Murderer

Dr Adrian Raine is one of the leading voices in neurocriminology. He was the first scientist to use neuroimaging to study the brains of murderers and is noted for his research on the neurobiological causes of violent behaviour in children and adults. He currently holds the chair of Richard Perry University Professor of Criminology and Psychiatry in the Department of Criminology. Smooth Brain Society was honoured to have Dr Raine talk about his research and the steps he hopes to see in order to reduce violent crimes in the future.

Want to listen to more?

This week we’ve put all these episodes (and more!) into the Salient Podcasts’ weekly playlist. Scan this link and follow to get your weekly fill of student podcasting.

A REMINDER

CW: Suicide.

Rangatahi Māori are overrepresented in almost all mental health statistics reported in Aotearoa.

In the well-being statistics for 2021, as reported by Stats NZ, Māori on average sat at 7.3 for satisfaction of life (on a scale from 0-10), which was noted to be significantly lower then the total population average of 7.7.

In the same set of statistics, 31.1% of Māori 15 years or older reported having poor mental health overall. This is higher than the rate for the total population of people 15 years and older, at 28.2%.

In the last financial year (2021/2022) the provisional rate for Māori suicide was 15.9 per 100,000 people. The general population rate was 10.9 per 100,000— 5.7 less than the Māori rate.

These statistics only get worse when we look specifically at rangatahi.

These facts are very confronting, but necessary to acknowledge. We, as Māori, face these statistics in our communities everyday. These are our people, our feelings, and our hauora.

In te ao Māori, we believe we are connected to all things around us. Therefore, our environment, home, whakapapa, and social relations all affect our health, including our Hauora Hinengaro.

The purpose of this piece is simple. To point out these inequalities. To plead that in a world where we face climate change, discrimination, racism, sexism, colorism, complicated family and social dynamics, and the ongoing impacts of colonisation, we work together to create a more just and equitable world. We can start by acknowledging these inequalities and taking action to make positive changes

We're affected. We’re being harmed. We need more support.

If you think you, or someone you know, may be thinking about suicide, call the Suicide Crisis Helpline for support: 0508 828 865. If either you, or someone you know, is in immediate danger, please call emergency services immediately on 111.

Words by Ashleigh Putt-Fallows (she/her; Ngāti Whātua, Tūhoe, Ngāpuhi)

Dear Aunty Vic

Over summer, I thought I had contracted a sexually transmitted infection (STI). Whilst waiting for my test results, I found myself in a similar situation, having to confront the uncomfortable task of potentially speaking to my hot-girl-summer sexual partners. It turned out to be a UTI. Nevertheless, my dear, it is time to face the music and do the right thing.

You must inform them. If you don't, you will trigger a chain reaction. The inter-floor sexfest will cause chlamydia to spread faster than the fresher flu. I know telling them can be uncomfortable and embarrassing. But remember, it's only awkward if you make it awkward. I suggest approaching the situation like ripping off a Band-Aid. Create a group text (not a group chat) and #SendIt.

"Hey, [insert partner's name here], just wanted to let you know that I got my usual STI test done last week, and it turns out I tested positive for [insert STI]. No need to worry, though. I'm taking antibiotics and should be back to normal in a week. I just wanted to remind you to get tested too, for your peace of mind. I got tested at the [insert testing facility], and everything was good. Sorry for bothering you on a Monday night, but I thought you'd want to know. Let me know if you want to talk more about it. Catch you later xx"

.QYou do not need to reveal how you contracted it, but it is critical to be empathetic and take responsibility.

.AIn the halls, STIs aren't the only things that spread quickly—so does gossip. I understand the fear that if you told your partners, they would tell their friends, and suddenly you would have a fluorescent flashing sign above your head saying, "CONTAMINATED! DO NOT TOUCH!"

On that, I call utter bullshit. Any person with a smidgen of respect would understand the delicacy of the situation and keep it to themselves. If they have contracted the STI, they won't go around broadcasting it to the world. If they do, then everyone will know they're also infected. Then, they're not only infected, but they're also a total prick. The natural whakamā around STIs will control the spread of gossip.

If it does impact your everyday reputation, try to be confident and brave. I cannot stress how normal it is to contract an STI. If anyone says otherwise, call them out. If you're on a night out, and someone says, "Heard you have chlamydia, Stella," I recommend the following responses:

"Yeah, Brad. Thank goodness I got tested, though, right? The antibiotics cleared it up in a week." "Yeah, Brad. I do. When did you last get tested?"

"Heard you have a big mouth, Brad."

Truthfully, an STI is no one's business but yours and your partner’s. However, gossip spreads quickly. So try to remain cool, calm, and confident. If someone’s being an asshole about it, call them the fuck out. And remember, it’s one thing to contract an STI, but it’s a whole other thing to lie about it. Do the right thing, send that text, have the convo, and I wish you all the best.

I have moved into the halls and discovered that I have an STI. I have slept with five guys since then, and I am worried it will cause a chain reaction.

MY NEURODIVERGENCE EXPERIENCE

CW: Anxiety, Depression, OCD, Suicide, PTSD, Hopsitalisation.

My brain does not work.

I have generalised anxiety, social anxiety, health anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder tendencies, severe depression, suicidal tendencies, sensory issues, and post traumatic stress disorder. Genetically, I most likely have ADHD and autism too. In all honesty, it’s not fun having my brain.

When I joked to my friend that, technically, I’m neurotypical, I was met with, “No the fuck you’re not.” When you have ‘tendencies’ on your medical file, they’re not considered a permanent neurological issue. This means that for things requiring a medical evaluation, like getting a visa, I can pass the test. But as my friend said, “just because you only got diagnosed then, doesn’t mean you didn’t have it before.”

Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, I have been admitted to hospital for mental health once a year— typically when seasonal depression hits. It is what it is. Sometimes I just can’t cope and need to leave the space I’ve been rotting in for a few months.

Finding out I’m autistic has been huge in improving my mental health. Suddenly, I had all these new resources, coping skills, and support to make the world more accessible for me. I struggle with asking for accommodations because I don’t have a formal diagnosis. In Australia and Aotearoa, a diagnosis is limiting. NZ has some of the harshest immigration policies that excludes autistic people from long-term visas.

I say to the people who ask how to get diagnosed: there is nothing stopping you from using the resources available and figuring out what your neurodivergence means to you. A diagnosis can be helpful for protection in the workplace, but it can also be discriminatory. In the medical system, it can mean that you are deemed unfit to control your own care. A guardian will be asked to, even if you are fully capable.

A lot of the time, people don’t realise they are being ableist. The most hurtful things I’ve experienced are the off-the-cuff remarks, like being called ‘lazy’. If I was going to be lazy, I wouldn’t leave the house. When I refuse to do something, it is because it is most likely going to inflict pain on me. My sensory issues mean I’ve scratched my skin off until it bled, and I’ve accidentally given myself a burn trying to erase the feeling.

OCD is completely unreasonable and I’m aware of it. Sometimes it’s easier to do what makes me feel better than to have a big panic attack. Panic attacks are no joke. When I had one while rigged up to a heart monitor, the nurse thought I was having a heart attack and I had to calm her down.

My only helpful hint for when your brain is not working is to talk to people. Talk to your doctor— or literally anyone—and see if they know something that will help. If you don’t talk, your world becomes so much smaller and there are so few chances for people to help, despite their willingness to. Systems are not designed to provide support if they don’t know there is any required. The worst someone can say is no—so you might as well ask.

Need to talk? Helplines on page 36

Words by Teddi (he/she/they)

Dissociation

Words by Aroha Witinitara (they/them, Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa)

I have stumbled into a retro arcade, lit by LED light strips and the illumination of screens, But there is something wrong with the machines. All the joysticks have been sawn off at the neck, and there’s just holes where the buttons should be. All I can do is wander the isles aimlessly.

I am a toddler in an adult-sized skin suit. My hands are like arcade machine claws, no matter how meticulously I place them they never manage to keep hold of anything. I feed all my coins into the machine and get nothing in return.

I am eternally suspended in the moment just after the flash goes off in the photo booth. Overwhelmed by brightness. The world trying it’s best to fade back in from the edges.

You’ve been taken advantage of. This is some ‘friend sleeping on your couch, treating you like a therapist, and not paying rent’ shit right here. Little does this person know, they’ve messed with the wrong Aries.

Woohoo, Taurus! It’s your birthday season! (Unless you actually listen to me and read your rising sign, in which case, I love you.) However, you’ve taken on an ‘it’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to’ attitude. Don’t be a brat. Just have fun.

Mercury retrograde is punishing you in petty ways. Double check that the message is going to your partner and not your mum when you send a sexy pic, and that you don’t talk shit about your friend in the group chat they’re actually in.

You’re in your ✨clumsy era✨. The other day, I saw a woman absolutely eat shit coming down the stairs of a double decker bus. Must’ve been a Cancer. Major Cancer energy. Remember: 6-inch heels and public transport are not friends.

I’m seeing major career x love life tension right now. This is not a time to turn to the crystals and cards like you usually do. What you need right now is some pragmatism and to be brutally honest with yourself. Something’s gotta give.

You’re tired of all the mercury retrograde talk. WTF does that even mean? From earth, it looks like Mercury is moving backwards in the sky —a symbolic indication of miscommunication. There. You never have to feel frustrated again.

I’m feeling a resentment towards all things astro girlie rn. You had a run in with a drunk girl recently who took it out on you because her ex was a Libra too. I’m feeling a bit of tension—maybe I should head out?

The ex that fucked you over isn’t having a very good time at the moment, and you’re enjoying watching them suffer. You did well when you chose not to get vengeful, because karma is punishing them better than you ever could.

There are only so many ‘recreational substances’ that your body can handle in a lifetime, let alone a single weekend. Throwing up at a work function, or greening out at your nan’s 80th, is a sign that things have gone too far.

Feeling a little left out are we? Poor baby.

Your flatmates are tired of your know-it-all bullshit. If you didn’t constantly correct everyone’s grammar and use Latin phrases, you’d become more popular and lose the ‘weird kid’ label.

Are you feeling jealous and threatened right now? I know you love to look like you don’t care, but I’m sorry, you do, and it's time to get vulnerable. Don’t you know that it’s the fool who plays it cool by making his world a little colder?

I see you having to spend your money in boring ways. You want to buy vinyl and clothes, but instead you have to pay for dentist appointments and car regos. This is money well spent though, and even if it’s not fun, it will improve your life.

brain boozled

WORD

You can be anxious, sensitive, kind, and wear your heart on your sleeve. You can be a mother or not, an ex-Mormon, or not, a nerd, a crier, a hugger—you can be all of these things, and not only can you be here—you can lead. Just like me.

Former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, in her Parliament valedictory speech on 9 April.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK HOTLINES

Some of the content in this issue dealt with pretty heavy stuff. If you, or someone you know, needs help, we’ve put together a list of helplines to call. Kia kaha <3

Youthline: Call 0800 376 633, text 234, email talk@youthline.co.nz, or webchat is available 24/7. www.youthline.co.nz

Need to Talk: Free call or text 1737, 24/7. 1737.org.nz

Depression Helpline: Call 0800 111 757 or text 4202. depression.org.nz

Lifeline: 0800 543 354 (0800 LIFELINE) or text 4357 (HELP)

Suicide Crisis Helpline: 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO)

Healthline: 0800 611 116

Kokomo

ACROSS

1. Agitated or unnerved (9)

4. To move up off the ground; 1984 Van Halen song (4)

6. See 1-Down

8. One of the sister cities of Wellington (6)

11. Hit 2023 TV show starring Pedro Pascal (3,4,2,2)

14. Word that can precede ‘luck’, ‘bickies’ and ‘as nails’ (5)

15. Insult meaning ‘stupid’ or ‘weak’ often used in kids’ cartoons (5)

16. Repeated word in Santa’s catchphrase (2)

17. Giving it a go; preceding ‘time’, a difficult period (6)

19. Summer or winter position for those undertaking law internships (5)

20. A type of plant that grows in marshy areas and wetlands; mouthpiece on some musical instruments (4)

21. A state of matter; American slang for petrol (3)

22. Score of an underwhelming sports game (3)

23. Word that can precede ‘hair’, ‘piercing’ and ‘job’ (4)

24. Both a type of flooring and a music format (5)

26. Abbreviation of ‘tonight’ (2)

27. Some foods of this type include chocolate, oysters, and spicy chillies

29. Small Starbucks drink size; vertically gifted? (4)

30. Atoll of birds; tasty treat (4,6)*

DOWN

1. Title of a 1999 cult classic film starring Edward Norton and Brad Pitt – if it were about bears (5,3) (with 6-Across)

2. Liquid that comes from trees; an insult meaning someone who is foolish and gullible (3)

3. Abbreviation for a Latin phrase used at the end of lists (3)

4. Feminine given name; alternate English term for pounamu (4)

5. Measure of tissues and toilet paper; type of wood (3)

7. Throwing club; social media feature (9)

8. Te Wai Pounamu (5,6)*

9. It is sometimes argued whether these foods count as soups (7)

10. 1968 film; word in a 1997 Duran Duran song title (10)

12. Happening shortly (4)

13. Paper-coloured archipelago; active volcano (5,6)*

18. Sums of money for research purposes; former Vice- Chancellor and a long-established law professor (6)

19. Type of thinking VUW prides itself on; administrative centre of a country (7)

25. Elegant and stylish; name of a disco band (4)

26. Collette of ‘Hereditary’, ‘Knives Out’ and ‘Muriel’s Wedding’

28. Unwell or sick (3)

LOOKING FOR THE RIGHT STUDY BUDDY?

THE TEAM

CO-EDITOR

CO-EDITOR

DESIGNER

SUB-EDITOR

STAFF WRITER

ARTS & CULTURE WRITER

STAFF WRITER

EDITORIAL SUPPORT

CONTRIBUTORS

Zeynep Todd (she/her)

Xavier Farrrow-Francis (he/she/they)

Takuma Ohashi (he/him)

Teddi (he/she/they)

Ashleigh Putt-Fallows (she/her; Ngāti

Whātua, Tūhoe, Ngāpuhi)

Aroha Witinitara (they/them, Ngāti

Kahungunu ki Wairarapa)

Ella Hoogerbrug (she/her) Blake (cross/word)

CENTREFOLD ARTIST

Francesca Pietkiewicz (she/they)

Francesca Pietkiewicz (she/they)

Maia Ingoe (she/her)

Bella Maresca (they/them) @cupids.kiss

Willem Koller (he/they)

VIDEO CONTENT CREATOR Seren Ashmore (he/him)

SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER

Alex Marinkovich-Josey (he/him)

PODCAST MANAGER

Ethan Manera (he/him)

NEWS EDITOR Zoë Mills (they/she)

NEWS EDITOR Niamh Vaughan (she/her)

CHIEF REPORTER

Bridget Scott (she/her)

SENIOR STAFF WRITER Tessa Keenan (she/her)

Pippi Jean (she/her)

Phoebe Robertson (she/her)

Jessica Arndt (she/her)

DESIGN & VIDEO INTERN Lauren Pemberton (she/her)

Maia Armistead (she/her)

Kiran Patel (he/they)

Joanna Fan (she/her)

Sahir Hussain (he/him)