Yesterday’s post got me thinking about a few things. The first is how I seem to live in a near constant state of fight or flight — a kind of low-level panic humming beneath everything — born from this deep fear of a home invasion. The nights are the worst. When the house is quiet and everyone else is sleeping, my mind begins its own vigil, rehearsing the worst case scenario over and over.
But the thing is, not everyone is sleeping. Out there, in the same streets we like to call our safe little suburb, there are people moving through the dark — breaking into cars, creeping around houses, shattering the illusion of security we cling to. Even here, in this supposed suburban utopia, the night has its own pulse.
Living in fight or flight mode feels like being held hostage by my own mind — paralysed by sheer terror, unable to move or negotiate my way out of it. Fight or flight is meant to save your life: a rush of adrenaline, a shot of cortisol, the body bracing for danger. But when it never switches off, it starts to destroy you. The brain forgets how to rest; the heart learns a rhythm that’s always one beat too fast.
Over time, that kind of vigilance becomes its own addiction. You get so used to the chaos that calm feels strange, even unsafe. The body keeps score of every surge and spike, every sleepless night, until one day you realise you’re not living — you’re surviving. Fight or flight was designed to get you through a moment. It was never meant to become a way of life.
And the thing is, it’s really bad for your health. Constant stress doesn’t just leave you tired — it raises your blood pressure, strains your heart, and feeds inflammation that can turn into heart disease or stroke. Cortisol throws your metabolism and hormones out of balance, storing fat around your belly and leaving you exhausted even when you’ve done nothing at all. Your gut slows down, your immune defences weaken, your memory blurs. It’s the body’s quiet rebellion against being kept on red alert.
The truth is, the emergency was never meant to last this long. Learning to come down — to breathe, to rest, to feel safe again — isn’t a luxury; it’s survival of a different kind.
After learning more about fight or flight mode, I’ve decided my primary goal has to be finding a home that at least creates the illusion of safety. I feel calmest in nice hotels — the ones with twenty four hour reception. I like knowing someone’s awake while I’m asleep, that if something were to happen, someone might notice. Maybe that’s why I want to move into an apartment in the city with a doorman or a reception desk. I want to live there with my mother and our two cats.
I know it sounds close to impossible given where things are right now. I’m in this strange kind of limbo — not working, not studying, not really moving toward any particular destination. But people move to warmer climates for their health; this would be my version of that. I need to live somewhere that feels secure, and that means an apartment with a single entrance, nothing else. Just one way in, one way out. The thought of that steadies me. An apartment like that would feel safer than any stand alone house: you’re one among many, there’s a quiet sense of community, of shared watchfulness.
And I’m going to make it happen. My next step is to study Fine Arts at Adelaide University— I’m still waiting to hear if I’ve been accepted, and I won’t know until December, but I’m cautiously optimistic. I’m not going to be a conceptual artist; I already am one, and I always have been. This will just make it official. There’s nothing that says you can’t make money from conceptual art — in fact, the act of doing so is part of the practice itself. That’s exactly what I intend to do: build a life and an income out of the work I love, so I can get the hell out of this house that’s slowly eroding both my physical and mental health.
The other thing yesterday’s post made me think about was my brief time in 2011 as a court officer at the Downing Centre District Court in New South Wales. When I first started at the courts, the other court officers would tell me about all the judges — their quirks, their preferences, their tempers, what they liked and didn’t like. They told me stories about the big trials they’d overseen and the reputations they’d earned. But there was one judge who stood out above all the rest, even more than the judge I loved so much. His name was Judge Michael Finnane.
In 2002, Judge Finnane presided over some of the most high-profile trials in the country — the coordinated Sydney gang-rape cases. Over several nights, groups of young men committed a series of brutal assaults against young women and girls, marked by extreme degradation and cruelty. In his sentencing remarks, Finnane described them as “the most horrific of crimes.” He identified Bilal Skaf as the organiser and ringleader and imposed a 55 year head sentence with a 40 year non parole period — one of the heaviest non-life terms ever handed down for sexual offences in Australia.
In 2005, the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal reduced Skaf’s sentence to 28 years with a 22 year non-parole period, calling the original punishment “manifestly excessive” and not within the “worst-case” category. But the fact that Judge Finnane imposed that sentence at all says everything about the kind of person — the kind of man — he was. What he was really saying was: "I am responsible for taking you out of our community for as long as I can, and I will not let you near another woman for at least forty years."
Later, after a quashed conviction and retrial due to juror misconduct, another ten years was added for a separate attack, bringing Skaf’s aggregate sentence back up. The later recalculations left his parole eligibility well into the 2030s — a legacy of Finnane’s determination that crimes like these must never go unanswered.
I read that after Judge Finnane retired from the District Court he went back to the Bar. I also read that he died in 2023, which I thought was sad. I don’t want to talk as if I knew him — I didn’t — but I know he was a traditional man. I was his court officer for just one day, and he liked it when his court officer tucked him into the bench by pushing his chair forward. I happily did that. I think I would have done anything he asked me to do.
He wrote a book called The Pursuit of Justice: My Life as a Lawyer, Judge and Social Justice Advocate. I have a copy, though I haven’t read it yet. I have a lot of biographies and autobiographies, but I tend to reach for the classics — Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, War of the Worlds — books that live somewhere between imagination and moral code.
Just last night I found myself thinking about that massive sentence Judge Finnane gave Bilal Skaf. And I wish I’d had the chance to say to His Honour, on behalf of all women: thank you. Thank you for recognising those gang rapes for what they were — gang rapes against all women. Thank you for refusing to let those crimes be softened with lenient sentences or brushed away with excuses. Thank you for holding the offenders accountable and for saying, in clear, legal language: not only was what you did bad, it was really bad.
Something else I was thinking about is how I lost everything because of that one judge I once thought I loved. Everything. I lost my past, my future, my sense of self. And I’m only just starting to get it back. But looking back, he wasn't bad and he wasn't good either. He was simply just unremarkable. But Judge Finnane was remarkable. He truly was. And if I had to have lost everything for a judge, I wish it had of been for him.
