Whirlpool and Me – a Troubled 20 Year Long Relationship

 

I want to tell you a little story, it revolves around one really unwell dude named Christopher Burke and one really useful and awesome website called Whirlpool. That’s not the one that makes washing machines – the one I’m talking about is www.whirlpool.net.au and has been running now (officially) for 20 years.

My Life as Me (#22)

I signed up to Whirlpool (user 22) after Simon officially allowed user accounts. I enjoyed using the site, it was full of really helpful people and we were moving from 500MB of data to 3G of unlimited data with limited speed on our brand new cable modems. They were awesome days, sharing hints and tricks – and explaining the heartbeat. I had just got a new job working at the University of Queensland after the dot com crash turfed me out of my first foray into programming online stores.

Then… for the first of a few times over the last 20 years, I had a massive mental breakdown. I had just finished working for 2 weeks doing performance tuning on the new Blackboard teaching system at The University of Queensland – working 120 hours in the second of those weeks. The system was running smooth for its launch. The next day (orientation day at UQ) I came to work as usual only to find there was no car parks available, rang up work, went home – and got a reprimand for not coming to work. I went catatonic and went nuts. I posted stupid things about Simon and Whirlpool and then tried to auction my user number on Whirlpool, not long after my wife left me and I got let go from work and then lost my house, and within a year had lost most of my savings.

My Life as User 127.0.0.1 (#42164)

This is when I tried my first incognito account on Whirlpool – 127.0.0.1 at the time.  Whilst I was severely mentally ill and unable to get support, I tried my best to remain sane. My time on Whirlpool as 127.0.0.1 wasn’t the best, either for me or for the poor moderators – but I did my absolute best to try and be normal, but I was just too unwell. In 2008, I finally got a good job at QBD The Bookshop, and worked there for 2 years until again – my mental illness started winning again. Then in early March 2008 – my  employers had me on notice because I wasn’t well enough to turn up at work on time, then one Thursday morning my sister rang me to tell me my father was dying and I had to head immediately to see him before he died. I did that, and managed to say goodbye – but that was the last straw for my boss at QBD and I was let go a few weeks later.

Again – I completely lost it, went off the rocker and blew up my life on Whirlpool as 127.0.0.1, I changed my name to “In the Penalty Box” to reflect the amount of time the tireless mods had put me there, and left local host behind.

My Life as Fizbin (#347950)

Trying to avoid ties to my past, I again tried to move on and start fresh sans baggage. At this stage I was suicidal 24/7, still had no help, psychologists and psychiatrists were at a loss as to how to help me, I had no family or friends – I was a rudderless, extremely unwell dude and almost destitute.

In the nick of time, around May 2010, I found the best job I’ve ever had (I still work there today). I started writing point of sale software and my employers were and still are very happy with my work.

However – I was still very unwell, increasingly so as no treatment had been found for me. I was still suicidal 24/7, but with no one to get help from – it was a daily struggle to stay alive, even though I had a great job.

Of course – the Whirlpool moderators again suffered, whilst not so poorly as before – I still had a lot of trouble staying out of trouble. I was just too unwell and increasingly lacking in interpersonal skills due to the total isolation (I was working from home permanently).

Things of course went haywire – after a run of very lengthy and stressful fights with Telstra over their inability to correctly handle my accounts things got worse than they had ever gotten before.

In October 2016 I had to leave my  rental property, and of course as with everything else in my life – I had to do it all alone, in a suicidal frame of mind. I had a place all sorted out lease contingent on internet access, so as usual Telstra (the only ones who could do Cable internet at the time) in their usual fashion totally screwed up the details and installed at the wrong address.

I went off the deep end, got dressed and went to get in my car to go and kill myself. Someone noticed a goodbye post I’d made on twitter and they alerted the police. So – long story short, the police came and took me (no choice) into what I can only call the 7th layer of hell.

I was pretty much broken, luckily the landlord held my lease agreement for long enough and I managed to not be homeless. However – I again had screwed up things on Whirlpool.

I was now pretty much broken, and still had no help or support to get me going. So I did one last change….

My life as The POS Dude (#789094)

The NBN turned up, and I was a completely broken human being – but I still needed to get help on the NBN and who to sign up with etc. So I made a new account in October 2017 when NBN came to my area, and decided to be myself, not by name – but by occupation. I’d been doing point of sale for 7 years, and I expected to be doing it the rest of my life – so I created The POS Dude.

To this day, I’m still broken, still totally isolated and suicidal every day. I have panic attacks when I log into whirlpool and there is any orange – because I assume I’ve been banned from Whirlpool.

My condition has finally (after 15+ years) been diagnosed. I have Severe Autism Spectrum Disorder (Alexithymia) and Extreme Anxiety Disorder. I am almost entirely housebound, I am not even well enough to get to the emergency ward if I needed to. I have on psychologist who has been working tirelessly to get me NDIS support – but the COVID-19 situation has pretty much blown that out of the water.

I still cause problems for the moderators, but I can’t do any better – except after 20 years of being on Whirlpool making the following statement:

Whirlpool has been instrumental in me being alive today, without Whirlpool I would have no community at all to discuss what interests me most, I would have been lost. I am sorry for the decades of moderator suffering – I do my best. Thank you Simon for having the foresight to create this community 20 years ago – I sincerely owe him my life.

This is all as accurate as I can remember and is all a genuine reflection of my last 20 years.