On my life

It’s August 2014 and it’s been too long since I've written anything here. A lot has been happening in my life. I’m happy, but a lot has happened.

Woodworking. I’m still woodworking. Still loving it. The last thing I've made is to replicate a plastic step-stool I have (because I’m short) so I can have one in my workshop and one inside the house. I've slowed down from buying tools too, but I can’t guarantee how long that will last.

Lego. I’m moving the Lego from the spare bedroom to a large display cabinet I got for my living room. I was hesitant at first to put them in a “fixed” position such a display cabinet or shelf, but now I much prefer to have them within easy view from the couch.

Work. Work is fine, but sometimes things frustrate me. On slow days I get frustrated with the fact that if I don’t see patients then I don’t get paid. On busy days I get frustrated with scheduling issues. Often I get frustrated with certain patients’ expectations of special treatment. More often I get frustrated at myself for allowing these patients’ behaviour, things other doctors or professionals from any other industry would not allow. Most days though something or someone will remind me why I do my job in the first place, and then I am satisfied.

Family. Well, not so much family as religion. I am still very dissatisfied with the way the religious group I belong to operates. My mother has to remain distant from me in order for me to protect her. And yet the threat isn't me; I am the one that loves her! The threat is posed by the religious group we belong too. I will admit that after my last blog, somebody confused a post I made on my facebook with the post I made about the things I love in life and told my mother some very vicious and hurtful lies about what I post online (she, of course, does not even use the internet to check things out herself). This resulted in my mother telling me she has never felt more ashamed of me in her life, and she is embarrassed of me because of the things I post online. Ashamed of me, of her daughter! Regretful of the fact I was born and the way I am. Yes, of me, and it’s not the first time she’s ever said that to me. And yet I love her and I know that in reality she loves me, but those words are the result of the religious group we belong too. That is sad. And there is nothing I can do to change anything. I can only love my mother, accept that she hasn't yet realised what I have (that we belong to a cult), and keep going about my life.

The last month. Gosh, I don’t feel I own this story wholly so I will try to remain respectful of other’s privacy and intimacies. In this last month I have at times felt so alone, at other times it was the closest I've ever felt to any other human being, so intrinsically-linked, so unbelievably happy, and then so terribly disappointed and angry. And yet, somehow, and definitely helped along because I know I am not alone, I remain hopeful. I feel I have this undercurrent of general positivity. I am strong because I am not alone. I feel strong because I choose to remain positive and optimistic despite some hell of an emotional roller-coaster. I feel like a soldier, but not a soldier on their own, but one that is part of an army. My army, our army, and though we may not win every battle, we are not beaten. I am so not done.

On my obsessions

A dam koala... A koala I saw on a visit to a dam.

If you haven’t noticed, I haven’t been writing a lot recently – and I love writing! But turns out there are a lot of things I love also. Recently someone described it perhaps more correctly as obsessions; I get obsessed with certain things. Rewind back to a year ago and I was completely absorbed with guitars. I was obsessed with learning about them, taking them apart and modifying several, and even trying to learn to play. Well, I didn't quite get to the playing part due to having a mismatch in attitudes with my teacher who discouraged me to the point I now get panicked to even hold the guitars in my house, but that’s a story for another day. The list of other things I’m told I also obsess about are my Lego collection/village, rabbits (in all shapes and form), buying bed linen, and the one thing that has been consuming me day and night for the last month or two: woodworking.

My obsession with woodworking started from when I was a teenager, or perhaps even younger. See, I was always a nerdy kid, the kid who preferred going to the library at lunch time, and absolutely dreaded phys ed class. I wasn't good any activity that was physical, and I didn't enjoy it at all. I did, however, really enjoy visual and literary arts, and once I was introduced to it, I fell in love with manual arts too. Suddenly I enjoyed something that wasn't purely intellectual – and it didn't matter how good or bad you were, most things could be fixed somehow. I did manual arts for 3 years in high school, dropping it for the senior years to focus on the academic stuff. I remember I told my mum and siblings that one day I would become a doctor and I’d buy a house and in my house I’d have a workshop and then I would take up woodworking again.

Well, here I am. Coincidentally the house I bought happened to have this room at the back of the garage that, well, someone could turn into my workshop. And that’s what I've been doing. That’s what I do when I get home from work and on my days off. I recently took a 2 week holiday in which I think I spent 80% of my waking hours in that room. A large proportion of the remaining time was spent buying tools. And you know what? I had a great few weeks. It gave me a new focus and clarity to return to work and the rest of my life.

I read a woodworking blog once where someone asked, ‘what have you learnt from woodworking that also applies in general life?’ I made a light-hearted note recently when my router stopped working suddenly just as I was preparing to fix it to a table, that some things would rather die than lose their freedom. That was a joke, of course (for people like me), but a more memorable quote I once read said that a master woodworker isn't one who doesn't makes mistakes, but one who can cover up their mistakes well. And that’s more like my style of philosophy:  Everyone stuffs up; what matters is what you do next.

But, yes, the obsession part of this, as was pointed out to me, is I spend a lot of time buying tools, doing random odd jobs in my workshop, and watching, reading, and attending woodworking shows/magazines/videos. A LOT of time! My plants are going unwatered. I get itchy at work to go home and work on some unfinished project when I have gaps between seeing patients. I've had to re-calculate my budget to try to stop myself from overspending on tools and things for woodworking. I've been neglecting my own blog and reading so many woodworking blogs. It’s ironic, yet at the same time I think I’m finally learning about the importance of balance.  When my life isn't just work, it is so much more enjoyable.

On keeping quite

I've noted myself that I haven’t being writing as much as I used to, and I think that now I know why. I was trying to convince myself that it was because of lack of ideas, but that’s not the real (or at least not the whole) truth. I have been censoring myself. I know, it’s embarrassing but that is exactly what I have been doing for at least the last year.

It’s interesting that I started this blog to put down some of my rants, to share some of my stories, and essentially to say the things that I lack verbal finesse to say adequately. It was meant to be to express myself and my personal opinions. So what happened? I've been scared. It’s true, I have been.

It started because at one point I was asked by someone to not share stories about my romantic relationships because they felt that reflected badly on them. So I held back my feelings (which I am finally realising are solely my property) and tried to eliminate even commenting that I may or may not at a particular time be in a relationship. Then I was dissatisfied with the circumstances of a couple of the last few places I've worked, and yet too scared to lose my job (and suffer financially) for saying what I really think and what I think is wrong. Later I became scared to even comment about any social or political situations that I have opinions on, for fear that my opinions may unfortunately be seen as not simply my opinion but those of “a doctor”. I was at the time reading stories about people who happened to be doctors and also bloggers who were posting opinion pieces, and who later received attention or reprimand from medical registration boards because apparently doctors can only ever be doctors and never just be everyday human beings with opinions. I was scaring myself into thinking that I just wasn't allowed to have an opinion that may not ‘reasonably be expected of a medical practitioner by the public’ or that may not ‘reasonably be shared by my peers’. Yes, I was thinking in medico-legal terms. And I was afraid to post about things that concerned or bothered me about the religious group I attended for fear of it affecting my or my family’s standing and reputation within the congregation.

So what does Vanessa discuss if she can’t talk about love, medicine, socio-political commentary, or theology? Not much. Because those are the things that affect my life the most, the things that I want to talk about. So I almost came to a complete halt of this blog. But I've been feeling very frustrated and very tired in the last year, and I've come to the conclusion that there may be a correlation between my lack of self-expression and the ongoing frustration and exhaustion in my life. So my plan this year is to allow myself to regain my passion for self-expression, and to lose some of the frustration that comes from my self-imposed censorship.

Thank you for your support.

Nothing should come between a woman and her love for... mangoes.
This picture was meant to be an analogy for writing, but mangoes will do :)

On what I've been doing (and why I bought a house)

As you may be aware, I have for a long time being hesitant about buying a house, versus renting. I have blogged about my fear to own a house before. And you know why I haven't being blogging recently? 1) I often have to censor myself completely so as not to say something about some or another frustration at work that may get me fired, 2) I also often censor myself about saying something that could offend someone close to me, 3) I bought a house and I've been very busy!

I wish I had some "mature", philosophical, or financially-savvy reason that I could tell you is why I bought I house. I don't. So I can only share with you these photos and hope you understand.

It made mum so proud to take this photo
When we lived in El Salvador, no-one of my family could have fathomed this. 

My animal-babies get their own room.

I have no qualms about pampering animals like this.

          

An outdoor area to continue to pamper the animals. 

Growing plants for myself and the animals.

On being religious

You know, I’ve always described myself not only a spiritual person, but also a religious person. Which is not to say that I am a divisive person of the view that ‘my religion is right and all others are wrong’ but a person who thinks that religion and theology are fascinating topics of intellectual consideration! But it is hard being religious. It is hard for so many reasons and on so many levels.

You know what I consider the single greatest detriment to the standing of religion in our world? Humans; other members of our religions. I don’t believe it is extremism or the varying beliefs, not the names of our Gods, not our values, but our fellow worshippers. Those other things may turn off a great many people off religion, but it is our co-worshippers who turn off those of us who are already believers. People often ask me if I am Christian because my mother is and she’s forced it on me or because my culture almost demands it. And my answer is I am Christian despite my mother and despite my culture and despite a lot of other Christians I have known.

It is incredibly difficult to remain a Christian, or a member of any other religion for that matter, without feeling an element of shame in admitting that part of our identity because of the negative connotations of some religious people’s acts. We live in a very well-informed society, in a very scientifically-advanced society, in a society where knowledge on almost everything is easily accessible to everyone. The “sins” of our religious co-worshippers and of our leaders are exposed and become common knowledge – and yet how do we maintain dignity in acknowledging association with such people, with certain practices, with unusual or seemingly illogical beliefs? In my case it isn’t “blind faith” or ignorance but rather a choice.

And what makes it particularly hard for me to call myself a Christian? The judging attitudes of my co-worshippers. For some reason a lot of members of organized religion consider that they become holier the more they judge others, like digging up and speaking of others’ faults somehow bleaches their own soul of sin. I don’t remember reading about that in the bible! I do remember reading all those verses about judgement belonging only to God, that our duty was only to love our fellow humans and not to pass judgement on them, and about the hypocrisy of any imperfect human judging others since we are all sinners. It always strengthened my faith to know that God is a loving God, that he knows our deep intentions, and that he knows we are imperfect and does not ask of us any more than we are able to give. Yes, God has great qualities – but, oh boy, our fellow worshippers are a lot harsher! They often judge those outside of our belief system and those within our religion with a wrath that is all so ungodly! In fact I believe it is so ungodly that it is evil.

I remember one of the first accounts in the Bible being about Adam, Eve, and the serpent. The serpent’s deal was that he thought, ‘hey, how come this God dude gets to be boss? Why can’t I be boss? Why should only he get the worship from these humans and angels and such?’ He wanted to be God. And you know what our religious co-worshippers are really good at? Trying to do the same thing: to rob God of his unique role of being the rightful judge of human behaviour since he is the only one who knows our deepest inner thoughts and intentions.

I made the choice some time ago to answer only to God. I made the choice to consider all humans, and not just those that call themselves Christians or belong to my particular denomination, as my equals. I made the choice to place my trust in only one God and accept that those who claim to represent him here on Earth are still only my equals and are not interchangeable with God.

On why I haven't been blogging

Wow! It seems like forever since I’ve written. What has been happening with me? Someone pointed out to me that I am someone who doesn’t just like things, but I apparently obsess about the things I like. Well, I admit that that is at least partly true. And what I have been obsessed with of late is learning to play guitar, taking my guitars apart and putting them back together, building a display case for them, reading about some very talented guitarists, learning about guitar construction, etc. I guess I can get carried away – but I enjoy every second of it! It is such a buzz at the stage I am now, and one day it may fade, but at the moment it is so fun to let my curiosity and enthusiasm carry me away.

But that’s not all I’ve been doing, of course. I’ve had difficulties with some of my interpersonal relationships, with my previous job, with money, but I figure that in the big picture I am actually quite blessed and none of that stuff is worth giving up my momentum for. I choose not to remain stagnant. I have so much, and the most valuable thing anyone possesses is our potential – and I’m not forgetting that!

On loving

I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars
 if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies

I’ve started to wonder again what it’s like to be in love. I know, I’ve spoken many times about being in love and have related it to my own experience, but now I feel like a novice again. What is it like to be in love? I mean, really in love; like the people who are so in love that they dedicate their lives to this love, to each other, and then they get married. What’s that like it? What is it like to love like that? I don’t think I know.

I imagine – and, yes, I believe imagining is not enough – that to be truly in love two people have to be really sure of themselves, of their feelings, of their partner’s character, and of their partner’s feelings. How else to do you put it all on the line like that? How do you accept such vulnerability if not by having at least a substantial amount of trust in someone else? It’s hard enough in this world to trust yourself (at least for some of us), but then to trust someone else too – Wow! That to me is what I have perhaps never experienced if I am now doubting whether I truly have known love.

The one question that niggles at the back of the mind of someone like me who has in the past believed that they were in love with someone else is ‘is it reciprocated?’ And an even worse and even more troubling question is ‘am I giving too much for what I can expect in return?’ I know, right, we all are told that biblical/romantic story that true “love is patient”, “love is kind”, “love is not selfish”, blah blah blah; so I should be feeling ashamed for having just admitted that those questions do go through the minds of so many of us, especially the majority of us who have been heartbroken in the past. But love IS selfish and unkind and impatient; I believe it has to be! For you to truly believe that the person whom you love is worthy of your love, you have to believe that they are someone special. And yet you have to convince yourself that they’re not so special so as to deserve someone better than us mere mortals with all the flaws in ourselves of which we have full comprehension. No, you have to be selfish and think, ‘yes, they’re special and deserve the best in the world, but I don’t care about that because I desire them to be mine’. There you go, that’s selfish! It’s selfish but I believe it’s necessary, and admittedly it is the same concept that brings about the impulse in us to better ourselves. We want to become that amazing person our own “special person” deserves – and there’s nothing wrong with that!

Is there something wrong with wanting or expecting someone to reciprocate our love? Oh yes, the biblical story again about giving unselfishly and without expectation of getting something is return… Well, I don’t believe it applies here. What’s the validity of loving someone if they don’t love you back? That is NOT love. That is worship or idolatry or something of that quality. It doesn’t console me to be loved by someone I don’t love in return, and it doesn’t rejoice my heart either to love someone who doesn’t love me in return (or whom I believe doesn’t). But besides wanting to be loved in return, I want to be loved equally.

Equality in love; oh gosh, I wish I could believe again that such a thing is possible. I mean, people get married all the time; it must be possible to love like that, right? Right? I’m at a loss here. I want desperately to believe it’s possible, but the evidence doesn’t convince me fully. Because I have been heartbroken in the past, maybe even too many times, I find it hard to ever imagine a time when I ask the question “am I giving too much?” and the answer is no. More interestingly is I (and perhaps others in my situation too) have never asked “am I giving too little?” I thought about this only a short time ago. I had never asked myself that question; and at the same time I was certain that almost 100% of the time I was giving too much, without a doubt. But what if I’m not? What if I am giving too little or what I give are only irrelevant things? Woah! That took some effort to overcome my ego to just write that last sentence. I often think that the things others are offering me are too little!

What would I give up for love? I’ve spoken of it; I’d give money, my career, lesser dreams than love, my religion perhaps, etc. But what won’t I give up? That is the more important question! Well, it would be hard for me to give up my family, especially my mother. It’d be hard to give up my desire to be a parent to a child during my lifetime. It would be hard for me to commit murder or break other deep-seated morals I stand against. It would be hard to give those things up for love, because it would be akin to abandoning my true self. What have I to offer anyone if I lack even my own integrity, my own character, my own self-respect? Sure, there is devotion and one can still do good even without a grain of soul left in you, but that is not living to me. Who would ask this of me? Who would expect I empty my soul in order to be with them? Well, some people would say that this is exactly what the devil does: ask for your soul even if there is nothing left in it. Could I love someone like that? Could I expect to be loved by someone like that? And it sounds dramatic when I put it in those terms, but you have to remember that the world we live in isn’t too far from my analogy. Adolf Hitler had a wife who adored him and loved him to the very last breath. Paedophiles often have wives who hide their secrets for them, who sometimes even assist their partners in their crimes.

One day I would like to be in love, truly in love. I would like to feel that my love is reciprocated, that it’s equalled, and that it is worth both my and my partner’s sacrifices.

On my religious and spiritual journey - Part 3/3

When I started re-evaluating my concept of God and what his will was, I went back to basics. I remembered a scripture in the bible of when Jesus was explaining the purpose of what Mosaic law meant. The law given to Moses had hundreds of commandments of what the Jews had to do and not to and when, etc. The purpose of it all was to ensure that the Jews worshipped God in a certain manner and also that they be protected from harm. Then Jesus implied that after his death, Mosaic law was to be abolished and he said that the whole of God's will can be summarized in only two commandments (not the hundreds given to Moses): 1) Love only God as god, and 2) Love each other as God loves you. That was it.

I concluded that God's will had nothing to do with guilt, and guilt was not a virtue to God! Sure, the bible still has those commandments about how to practice his worship and no idolatry, no fornication, etc, but also it tells me that God does not ask of me any more than I can give and that He will be the only one to judge my sins, errors, behaviors etc. I am not God; I have no place trying to judge other's sins or punishing myself for my own. God who knows what is in my heart, my intentions, why I do the things I do, why I desire the things I do, I believe is the only person fit to pass judgement on me. And that is my "new" thinking. That is how I came to stop feeling depressed about having to make religious sacrifice and how I overcame my guilt for just being human. If I had to do it all over again, I don't think I'd pick a different faith, I'd hope I just merely came to this conclusion faster.

So what is my philosophy? As I’ve discussed previously, my personal values are my family, participating in and enjoying life while I am alive, and not making a world a worse place for anyone or anything. I believe in God, but I also believe in humanity. I believe human's greatest quality is our ability to think and reason for ourselves. I sometimes meet with a religious group whose ideology I mostly share and I call myself a Christian because I do believe in the Bible being a holy book and I aim to follow the guidance provided in it by Jesus Christ. I worship God because I am grateful to him for all I believe he has been responsible in my life. I follow the things the Bible says because I believe it is wise and its mandates are for my overall good. I’m not scared of God that he will punish me in any way because the God I believe in is understanding, merciful, forgiving, and not vengeful. I believe he is far too grand to be offended or hurt by the actions, words, or thoughts of one little person as I am. I understand also that my belief in God may be mythical, as real as he feels to me. So I hold nothing back from this life that I may experience it in an afterlife that I am not 100% guaranteed will actually happen. Once upon a time perhaps my faith was stronger, but for now this is the God and the rules and the values I believe in. This is the type of God I respect, and the type of God I want to emulate.

I love God. My God. I love the type of God that lets me love him and not at the exclusion of also loving myself.

On my religious and spiritual journey - Part 2/3

If it weren't because of the lack of contact with other believers and an ever deeper instruction in them, I would have joined a Jewish or Buddhist religious organization. I did wish that Judaism had reached out to me further rather than feeling that it was not a religion that encouraged new members from other cultures/ethnic group. So I delved further into going with what was around me, which was for a long time was only Catholicism. I asked a lot of questions and mostly I was shut down because, I was told, some things I just had to accept and believe rather than understand.

Only one religious group welcomed my questions and actively sought to reason with me using a holy book (the bible), "logical" deduction methodology, and my own knowledge of the world and science, etc. This group's philosophy and people welcomed me and I welcomed all their doctrines into my life too. The fact that I welcomed it too shaped the next few years of my life. Many of these group's ideals had been my pre-existing ideals also so that certainly helped to adopt this new religion. It interpreted the bible's New and Old Testaments largely literally - and it even tried to show with historical and scientific correlation how this text / prophecy was a true document that should inspire my belief and obedience. And I still to this day believe it is so, either in spite of or because of my academic background in science.

I came to believe that the bible was a document worthy of my respect and belief, and I believed then that I must do the things it says that I do and don't do in this life. Obeying bible advice was at times instinctive, but often contradictory to what I wanted and desired. No other aspect I think was more pronounced for me than its concept of "fornication" or sex outside of a traditional marriage. That was certainly not instinctive! Yet for very many years I bared my stake/cross and sacrificed my desire for sexual intimacy for the sake of not displeasing the God I had learnt about in the bible. I still don't feel that this sacrifice was in vain or bear resentment of it, but rather I am still proud (and amazed) that I was capable of such dedication, commitment, and self-control for all those many years.

If you asked my why I joined the religion I did (and I'm not talking about Catholicism, which I inherited and never chose), I would say it was because it was the one that to me seemed to have a concept of God and practice that I thought would most resemble a God that I could respect. This God (and this religion) encouraged my questions and helped me find the answers in a book believed to be inspired by God. He was also a God that had many good qualities, that encouraged new followers, and that gave commandments that were meant to benefit me and not merely fill me with guilt. I liked this God, and I liked what he stood for.

Over time I found myself becoming more and more unhappy, depressed, feeling guilty all the time. This was because I was finding it increasingly harder to do what God asked of me and it was really weighing me down. The more I tried to be a good Christian, the more it hurt. I became depressed. There were many reasons that culminated in my depression, but my spiritual beliefs should have been my saviour not the lead weighing me down further. Then I finally put the pieces together to my inescapable depression: one of the main characteristics of depression is undue guilt; and yet one of the tenets/virtues of Christianity is to feel guilt!

In Christianity it is believed that Adam and Eve were guilty of the the original sin (disobedience) and from them all human beings have inherited both the tendency to sin and guilt for this sin of theirs. Do you know how hard it is to overcome depression when you continue to feel guilty? I can see the futility of my thinking now, but for a long time I had no idea why so many of my other co-worshippers were suffering depression too. Guilt will eat you alive! Now, I'm certainly not saying that all cases of depression are due to undue religious guilt, but taking to this concept of Christianity as passionately as I once did does push you further down into a black hole. Luckily, I did not stop learning or thirsting for more knowledge and wisdom once I had become a full member of my new religion.

On my religious and spiritual journey - Part 1/3

I was baptized as a baby into the Catholic Church. This was not my mum's idea and nor did it actually signify anything as to what my life would be as it was purely done out of cultural and family tradition. Growing up my mum taught my siblings and I to be respectful of others, not hurt them physically or verbally, to be respectful of the law, and basically to treat all human beings as equal and as we wanted to be treated in return. She also taught us about this spiritual being called God that we could never see or hear but that we could talk to in prayer to ask for help and guidance in our lives. She taught us about this book called the bible that had all these stories about God and things he had done for other people who were "good" and others who were "bad". As a result of that I concluded that I wanted to be "good" to please this God being and have his blessing and not upset him and have his punishment in the future, which mostly meant after I was dead. She didn't teach us religious rituals or ritualistic prayers like those practiced in the Catholic Church as she herself did not believe they served any purpose.

When I was seven or eight it was decided that it would be nice for me to get to wear a pretty dress, like other girls in our town did, and partake in Catholic communion. Like my baptism as a baby, it was more about tradition than any religious or spiritual symbolism. A few kids and I met for a few weeks with a very nice and respectable member of the church to learn from an illustrated book about Catholic rituals and a bit more about the stories in the bible about angels, Jesus, his mother Mary, and also about how the communion ceremony would proceed in a few weeks. We rehearsed the ceremony and learnt some Catholic prayers and hymns. My mum had a really pretty white dress prepared for me. I still remember some of the songs we sung and the part of the communion ceremony where I forgot everything we had rehearsed for it, specially of what I was supposed to say to the priest the first time I took the Eucharist and he said something about the "body of Christ". I was completely blank standing in front of him and wondering what I was supposed to say back to him so that he would give me that sticky wafer. I remember he kept asking me over and over again, changing the intonation of his voice to a slightly more angry one, and I couldn't think of anything to say back to him. At one point he inflected his voice to sound like it was a question "body of Christ?" and I thought I had finally figured out the answer. "Yes", I said. No, he repeated it again and then asked if I didn't know how to answer properly. I said, "Yes, please". Finally a child standing behind me in line said to me "you have to say Amen". Finally I said it and the priest gave me the Eucharist, but before I walked away he asked who my communion teacher had been. I can laugh at it now but for years I felt guilty that I had gotten Cesar, my teacher, into trouble by forgetting the word "Amen". (Guilt, mea culpa, and penance were some of the catholic "traditions" of christianity that Cesar had also taught me.) At the end of it all, everyone commented on how pretty I looked in my communion dress, and that to myself and my family is all Catholic communion meant: a chance to wear a pretty dress in front of a lot of people. My baptism had been my grandmother's idea (my mother thought it was a waste of time because I was a baby and I would have had no idea about Christianity), and my communion was town tradition mixed in with vanity.

I completed my Catholic "confirmation" when I was about 10 years old or so. This time it was one my aunt's idea for whatever reason that one my brothers, her son, and I all partake in this ceremony. Again, I had to go to catholic Sunday school for a few weeks. We learnt from another illustrated book about angels, catholic rituals, and Jesus. The book was very colorful and I liked the drawings in it. We also had to go to confession where you'd tell the priest bad stuff you've done and, as if he was some sort of authority, he told you that God would forgive you if you repeated some ritualized prayers so many times. I hated going to it as I had to think for ages on what I could possibly have to feel guilty about at 10 or 11 years old so I could feed to the priest at confession. After some weeks, the communion ceremony was held and we got given little certificates, a little badge with a dove on it, and we took heaps of photos in our nice clothes. Our school principal was at the ceremony and participated in it, which I didn't like because he was very mean to everyone at school and often hit the boys' hands (and once mine also) with a wooden ruler for misbehaving. I thought he was a hypocrite and not a good person, even though he was apparently a good Christian. I knew, though, even at an early age, based on what mum and not any of my Catholic teachers had taught me, that it was not my place to judge him.

After arriving in Australia, I attended a catholic primary school (with the principal I spoke about) and then a catholic high school. High school for me was such a massive change from what I had been in primary school. I finally got over my shyness and I started to form my own ideas about life, etc. As any other teenage kid, I started challenging my superiors and rebelling just for the sake of rebelling. At school I wanted to challenge my religion teacher's doctrine, and at home I wanted to challenge mum's. My mum had started to become involved with a Christian group that went very much against idolatry and religious rituals. I began to wear a crucifix I was given at school as a necklace to irritate her. At school, I would question my religion teacher about some of the scriptures I'd overhead mum learning about at her home bible study and other things I had learn at Catholic Church too. I asked my teacher about worshipping a cross or a manmade icon when God had strictly forbidden such behaviour to the Israelites in what is commonly called "the Ten Commandments", or why I had to call the priest "Father" when Jesus had insisted that not even he (allegedly God's son) be called this let alone any other human being, or why had to talk to the priest to ask for forgiveness and not directly to God if God allegedly loved me and was all-powerful and so should be able to hear my prayer directly, etc. etc. I admit most of the time I was just trying to stir people, my religion teachers or my mum and her friends from her new Christian group, but underneath it all, I guess I was also curious about religion and spirituality. Gradually I started to become more and more interested in theology.

By the time I was 17 I was very much into reading about different religions and theological belief systems. I found Christianity particularly fascinating in that so many hundreds of denominations exist with slightly (or very) different focuses, practices or rituals, and interpretations of what is essentially the same story in one book. The common origin of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity seemed so enthralling to me. The more human-oriented philosophy of Buddhism and Eastern traditions inspired me to wonder more about what is "humanity" in humans. And the polytheist religions both inspired disbelief (because it was so foreign to all I'd ever learnt with only one God) and curiosity as to how models of religion and spirituality are constructed by the minds of human beings. By the end of my schooling and soon after starting university, I was sure I'd one day I'd either join Judaism or Buddhism. I was a lot more preoccupied with religion in my teenage years than in what other teenagers were interested in; yet not completely. Sex interested me. It interested me in the normal way, and it interested me in the way it was so closely related to spirituality in most religions.

On owning a house

I have always been scared of owning a house, but until the last week I haven’t really been able to explain it even to myself. Everyone has always told me that I should want to own “my own” home, that it’s the adult thing to do, that it’s the Australian dream, that it’s the successful person’s dream, that it’s the most financially savvy thing to do, etc… And yet at the same time knowing that it’s not my dream, I thought that I may be lacking something: maybe maturity, maybe the drive to think big. The thing is that I have rarely met people who “own” their houses, just a lot of people who think they own homes and really only own mortgages. In other words, in my eyes I know a lot of people who own large debts. I also, and not coincidentally, know a lot people who feel enslaved to jobs they no longer enjoy, a lot of people who feel a constant pressure that if they don’t earn they will lose a large sum of money and pride. I know a lot of people whose prisons are their jobs for the crime of loaning large sums of money to buy the illusion of owning the structure they take shelter in. Is the illusion worth it? Is a house really worth the slavery most people submit to for 20-30 years? But, people tell me, I am missing the point. See, they tell me, at the end of it you’ll own the house! And you were already going to be pay rent, so may as well use that same money you were already going to spend on the same thing (shelter and a living space) towards something you will eventually own. Yes, something I will own when I am over 50… and which serves me for what? Oh yeah, to live in. That’s it. That’s all the good I can see come of this.

But wait, you don’t have to just own one house, you can own several. You can own one and rent the other/s, or resell them at a higher price. And if you’re smart, you can earn a profit from doing this. Profit? Yes! Of course that is how people like Donald Trump have amounted massive amounts of wealth. However, I have to admit that I haven’t met many Donald Trumps. At the very least I haven’t met anyone who is made happy purely by the fact that they own many properties or have a lot of money. Is my view in this skewed? Yes, for two reasons: 1) I don’t know a lot of people who are made happy by money or property because I don’t share the same values as them and so don’t associate or attract these people as friends; and 2) it means little to me or my happiness how much money or property I own. If I am to be convinced that owning property is going to be beneficial to me, I have to be able to see how it would help fulfill me; unfortunately the properties and the money to be made from them would not make me feel more fulfilled.

What do I care about? My family, participating in and enjoying life while I am alive, and not making a world a worse place for anyone or anything. Call it Christian values or call it hedonism or my own particular philosophy, but it’s as simple as that for me. Yet wouldn't having more money allow me to spend greater time with my family, or “enjoy” life more, or participate in life to a greater extent, or increase my likelihood of what I could do to improve social justice or the environment? Probably. And don’t get me wrong, I usually support thinking “long-term”, but I have come to realise that life is actually not that long. Perhaps it’s as a result of the environment I grew up in with the life-expectancy of those around me being so unpredictable due to poverty and warfare, or perhaps it’s because of the job I do, but I think it’s not always wise to put off living. I genuinely worry that if I spend too much time engaged in earning (to provide for my family or enjoying life, etc), I may well miss out on my family or the time to enjoy life. Sure, most of us in Western society can quite safely expect to live past the time we would've finished paying our mortgage and past retirement, but should we really wait until then to start enjoying the profits of our labour? Maybe it is my yet immature thinking or the fact that I don’t yet have children that clouds my vision, but I don’t want to it put off too long.

Now, what if -worst case scenario- and I work, pay off my mortgage, and then die? Shouldn't I be proud and glad that at least I will have provided for my children a house for them to inherit? I mean, that’s good, right? Sure, that’s noble. How many of us, however, have not inherited houses and still turn out quite OK? I’d say that’s the majority of people. So I’m not convinced at this stage that that is a good reason to own a house. I think it was the billionaire businessman Warren Buffett who said that the perfect amount of money/things  to leave your offspring is "enough money so that they would feel they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing”. That is exactly what my mum did for my siblings and I and she never owned a house or anything of that cost; she just made sure to be supportive and educated us. I want to do exactly that for my children. The rest they will provide for themselves if I manage to teach them responsibility and self-reliance well enough.

OK, OK, now back to the financial reasons as to why buying a house would be good for me. I am told that if I continue to rent, then I am throwing away money, that it is “dead money”. Dead because I can’t profit from it, apparently. But you know what else is “dead money”? The money paid on interest on a home loan. Yes but I’m forgetting about the part where I get to keep my house after I have finished paying the bank back the loan and the interest! Yes, that’s nice, don’t get me wrong; and I do get the fact that you can do whatever you like to a house you have a mortgage on as opposed to one that you’re renting. For all the money I “throw away” by renting, I could be slowly paying off my house, wouldn't that be nice? Yes… if things in life could be guaranteed. I wish someone could guarantee that I will want to work with the same agility, strength, passion, and desire in 10, 20, or 30 years as I do now. Because if I lose my enthusiasm, that is when work becomes my jail for the crime of owing my house to a third party: the banks.  So most people have to keep working in order to avoid defaulting on their loans, working past the time that work became enjoyable, and working with the pressure and fear of keeping the bank fed. That is stressful! It kills the joy in life. How do I know this? Precisely because I meet people who are overwhelmed by these stresses every day at work.

I know there is stress also to pay the rent if you are renting, but I have noted one fundamental difference between those who are happy to rent and those who want to own a house: those of us who rent may stress about getting the money together at the end of the month also, but we don’t share the stress of potentially losing a large sum of money that people who default on loans take on. When you’re renting and you move house, that is it; you pay again for the chance to occupy a space you can live in. Renting is the same as any other consumer product. When we move house or as time goes by, rarely do those who rent sit to add up all the money we have “lost” by continuing to pay our rent. It is the same way that I don’t feel bad when I buy food that I have spent a small amount of money for something that is gone after I eat it when I could have instead put the money aside to buy a farm so that I could grow my own food, which eventually will overall turn out to be cheaper than all that food I bought over the years. Housing to me is just another consumer product. But those who have a mortgage and are unfortunately unable to keep paying it for whatever reason, end up owing a lot of money – and that scares me! Houses cost a lot of money and I don’t enjoy the pressure of having a debt that big.

I met someone a few years ago that told me that he was overwhelmed by the amount of work he had to do in order to provide for his family and maintain all the properties he owned. I asked him why he had so many houses. He said that it was because that was the Australian dream. It wasn't his dream, though. And I started wondering to myself ‘who is selling us these dreams, then?’ And then I read an internet post recently that answered this question and summarised the financial reasons of my fear of getting a home loan: “It is necessary that you be forced deeply into debt, and therefore forced into slavery, for the banks to make a profit”.

On excuses, reasons, and choice

I met someone some time ago who had some personality features I didn’t quite like. We were close for a time and so I told her that some of the things she did bothered and sometimes even hurt me. She told me that it was all because that’s just how she was, that that’s how she had turned out after been raped as a teenager by her father. Of course, that is a terrible thing to happen to anyone and I know it takes a lot of courage to tell your own story. And, of course, I also realise that childhood sexual abuse really does mess you up in so many ways! The strangeness of this particular situation was that this friend said to me fairly often “that’s just how I am” and reminded me about her father. I knew; I wasn’t going to forget what she had told me – it was something deeply serious! However, after so many times that she told me that that’s how she is and it’s due to the childhood sexual abuse she had suffered, I remembered that she wasn’t the only person this had happened to. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very sad and disturbing thing and every single person this happens to will experience it differently and will be affected differently by it in the long-term. However, I felt that with me she was using it as an excuse for her behaviour so as to avoid apology, or – God forbid – change.

I have known a very many people who have been sexually abused as children and not everyone was as mean as this ‘friend’ was to me; they weren’t obligated to be mean by reason of their terrible experiences. When I remembered this, and at the last straw with this friend, I walked away from it all. Yes, I know that people with histories of abuse in childhood are more likely to have a personality disorder in adulthood than those who never had those experiences. And yet I also believe in the human potential for change. I know that you can take away every choice from a child when he is abused. I also know that at some point a child becomes and adult and all adults have the choice to continue to be victims to the past or to progress from there. It’s a choice. My friend wasn’t without awareness of how her personality and the things she said and did hurt others (myself included), and she was a very smart woman academically and creatively. When I told her that something she did or said hurt me, she didn’t say “I’m sorry. I will try not to do it again”. No, she would say, “that’s just how I am. You know with what my dad did to me”. Yes, I knew that. I also knew he wasn’t currently doing that her; she was no longer a victim, she was just choosing to continue to wear the victim cloak as an excuse not to alter her adult behaviour. Finally, it hurt me too much to continue to be her friend when she found it easier to say “this is how I am” than to alter her behaviour to prevent hurting those that were simply trying to be a good friend to her.

On memory

I came across an email I wrote a few years ago and it was about something that happened to me in 2007. In 2006 I took some time out of medical school for reasons I’ve discussed many times in this blog. The thing is that in 2007 I returned to finish off my medical degree and I kept running into people I’d known previously from medical school – and they were all surprised that I had returned! The only person, it seems, who wasn’t surprised that I returned to my studies was myself. And yet I struggled to understand why people were surprised given that I never once considered it a possibility of not returning.

Here’s part of the email I wrote to my friend (and, yes, I do write very long emails):

Being back at the hospital I am often running into guys who knew me from a few years ago, and its so weird. Some of them (I guess the ones who knew me a little) tell me that they’re glad to see I came back into it, back to med. This girl even gave me a hug the other day and said exactly that! Now, in my mind I can’t remember ever being as unsure as these people seem to be that I would return. When I decided to take leave, I knew it was just a break, that’s what I wanted, and I don’t remember doubting that I would return, only doubting that if it was to be one rotation off or the rest of the year (that’s all the options the school offered me). But maybe I was projecting something different. I don’t know now, I’m confused. Maybe other people were projecting onto me and doubting my commitment or abilities more than I was. It’s so strange; I don’t recall being that unsure.

I remember feeling empty and alone and overwhelmed - and the insomnia- but it wasn’t even the lowest I have ever been. By comparison that period wasn’t even that bad or even that long-lasting. And I remember a few months after I stopped doing med in 2006, a friend of mine (and I mean a friend not an acquaintance) said to me “you’re not going back, right?” I thought that comment came out of nowhere and I was a little offended, because even at the time of that question I was very convinced that I would – and actually looking forward to returning to med the following year. 

My family also had countless talks to me telling me that I should return to med. I felt it was so pointless because they spoke to me as if trying to convince me of something that was against my will, whereas I felt ‘of course I won’t counter-argue because we both are thinking the same thing’. It was absurd. But of course, I knew that some of them were telling other members of my family that I was a loser who was incapable of finishing a real uni degree. 

And then there was my therapist, who probably knows me better than most of the people in my life and is familiar with most fragments of who I am. She also asked me before I started back, if I actually wanted to go back. Returning to med was never an issue as far as I was concerned; when I would was the only issue present at the time I decided to take time off. And she had known me since before I started to feel all the negative stuff that made me want to take the time off. 

So, my question is: why did everyone doubt that I would return to med; what have I forgotten from that time? Why do I forget? And what else am I forgetting? It’s scary, you know.
The only explanation I can think of for my old acquaintances saying they’re ‘relieved’ to see I came back into med is based on another theory of mine. After I’d already been on leave a few months 

I told two acquaintances of mine from medical school that I was on medical leave. So, my theory is that these two boys must have told a pretty drastic story of how I was and why I’d had the time off. I figured this after I ran into some people and to catch them up on my story I’d tell them that I was a year below them because I’d had some time off – and yet most people already knew that even though I’d only told two people in my course.  They all added that they were glad I had decided to come back. What decision to come back?! I had never doubted whether I would or not. Unless I am forgetting something. Am I forgetting something? 

It’s pretty confusing. I am scared of becoming convinced of something like 2+2=5 if you tell a person enough times, like in that book 1984. Maybe the whole world is really like that, and the world trade centre really just fell accidentally and there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and you can convince a person that the world has always been the way it is and nothing of the past atrocities brought us to this “progress”. But then what do memories serve us for? To confuse us? To make us suffer because of the incongruences?...

What I’ve come to realize since the time I wrote that email is that in this world it is dangerous to believe what others tell you about yourself. Hitler, for example, surrounded himself with yes-men, people who agreed with his every word and told him his every idea was genius. Isn’t the same equally true if others are constantly beating us down and telling us what a failure we are and how unlikely we are to succeed? We need not surround ourselves with only our worshippers and we don’t have to believe our oppressors, but the truest stories are sometimes those we write ourselves. The story of Vanessa is best written by Vanessa; and if I want to describe a positive person, then I have to build my story to allow myself to become that positive person. It’s taken me a while to figure that out, but my story is a work in progress.

On job satisfaction

Just in the last week I’ve had a few people tell me about how dissatisfied they are because they’re working in a big corporation and a few others have told me that they are dissatisfied because they’re working in a small business. There are plenty of things that can make you dissatisfied at work or about work, but it got me thinking a bit about whether the size of a company really does influence our general satisfaction levels and mood. Industrial and organizational psychologists will tell us that, yes, it can and there are some people who will thrive in one industry model and others in an alternative one. Anecdotally, I can attest to that statement based on the people I’ve met at work either as patients or colleagues. I can also tell you my own personal experiences.

What’s the good thing about working about for a big company? As an employee, the budget seems endless. You need what you need to do your job and you can access it reasonably easy. What’s the bad thing about it? If you need things other than those that relate to your job, especially that stuff of being human (e.g. holidays, time to recuperate from illness, or even just to be given a little slack when your personal life isn’t going so well), it is hard for a corporate machine to accommodate. Most companies will have a policy, but unfortunately that policy also tends to be quite strict. For example, bereavement leave may be just 2 days and turns out you may not be a human being that can get back to being your old productive self after the death of your parent after just 2 days. Then there’s also usually a hierarchy and a certain type of anonymity amongst very many employees. Yet both of those things can be positives: the hierarchy can give you motivation to progress; and the anonymity can afford you the space to work with less interruption. On the other hand, the hierarchy can lead to frustration when someone very distant from the sphere you work in makes decisions that affect you at your level without the direct knowledge of what things are like there. There is no perfect big company, and most try very hard to be, but there’s no escaping the fact that we are all human first and workers second.

Is small business, then, the answer to overcoming that barrier between being a worker and also being human? I don’t believe so either. The positives boasted about it are a much smaller hierarchy, often having direct communication with the big-decision makers, and much greater flexibility in work because you can discuss it directly with another human being. Then what’s so bad about it? Been wary of the much smaller budget at all times, and more human-human interaction and therefore greater possibility for human conflict with other workers.

Is there a perfect system? No, and there probably never will be a model that is right for everyone. As an employee all you can do is try to find that model that is best suited to your interpersonal and working style (and tools like the Myers-Briggs questionnaire can help).

In the last few months I’ve come to realize certain things about myself, and certain things about industry - and yet this is unfortunately knowledge that I have only gained through experience. I’ve noted that the greatest teams, the most successful companies, the greatest productivity out of a group of people is achieved when every member of that team feels useful, appreciated, and proud of achieving. In a working environment the reward for achievement is money: our salaries. Even a person who is not someone you’d call material and superficial engages in paid employment for exactly the reason of getting paid; after all, money pays for our daily necessities of life. One thing I’ve noted is that the more a person is paid, the more aware they become of the emphasis his company has for his role – in turn he becomes aware of his responsibility to represent his company in the best light he can. Pride. Pride in our work and feeling useful: tick. And if you feel a person does a good job, isn’t paying them their worth a good way to show your appreciation? I’ve also noted that when an employee stops feeling appreciated in his workplace, despite acknowledging his usefulness, he cannot maintain his pride and enthusiasm. I’ve seen it too often. And, I have to confess, I’ve felt it too.

On making "the unhappy" happy - Part 2/2

Of the war veterans I meet with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, do you know what they value most in their lives? Not finding a “cure” for PTSD and depression, but just appreciating and being able to be with the people in their lives. They accept very courageously – not cowardly – the goals of treatment of these disorders: minimizing symptoms, moving forward from the last exacerbation, and decreasing the number of further exacerbations. They don’t seek a cure, though of course if it were feasible, they’d pay any price to have it. But why fight futile battles? So, I say again that they very courageously choose to expend their energies on the things that matter instead: love, productivity, enjoyment. But before you assume that I am making a claim such as “there is no cure for depression”, let me clarify that that is not the broad statement that I am making.

I used to think, naively, that once I fell in love, once someone loved me and I had someone to share my life with, I’d be happy. I wondered why the people I met who had the things that I thought would bring me happiness weren’t happy. How could they be depressed when they had a partner, children, a job they didn’t hate, generally good physical health, etc.? Why hadn’t the love they had in their loves not cured their depression? Because lack of love didn’t bring about the depression, nothing that was correctable did. Yes, they had love; but completely unrelatedly they also had a mental disorder. Finally I realized why people give flowers to sick relatives in hospital: the flower isn’t meant to “cure” the illness, just make it more tolerable by giving you that warm feeling inside that you’re not alone and reminding you that people care about you.

In persons who have become depressed or suffering PTSD as a result of some psychological social trauma, there is nothing in this world that can erase the memories and/or the cognitive processes that get programmed into your brain. Remarkably, though, a human being can go about their lives being perfectly functional and socially involved despite these demons we carry around in our head. When you have a chronic depression or PTSD of this kind, the best you can wish for is not being “cured”, but having people around you who understand you and stick with you on the journey. Not even “love” can erase the inner hell we experience with these mental disorders, but love can motivate the people around us to give us the all vital support and understanding. Conversely, if you find yourself in a relationship with a person who has depression or PTSD or a similar complaint, you will only hurt yourself by believing that your role is to bring about “cure”; it’s not. Your role is no different to that of anyone else who ever loved: to love, to give (including understanding), to receive, and to share life together.

On making "the unhappy" happy - Part 1/2

One thing that took me a while to understand when I was younger is that “love”, or having a romantic relationship, doesn’t cure everything. In fairy tales, people fall in love and love rids you of physical “ugliness”, of having an evil heart, of disease and death, of financial poverty, of social oppression, of emotional and physical abuse, of low self-esteem, of disability, and of every negative thing that can happen to a human being. And don’t get me wrong, I like those stories as much as anyone else, and I'm also aware they are often metaphors for what love can actually achieve. Essentially love, being in love, being loved, loving, discovering love, etc. has the effect of giving human beings courage to believe in their own strength and to take risks. The greatest motivator for positive change and the strength to bring about that change is love. Love can conquer all…

The second most difficult thing for a human being to do is to bring about change in this world. The single most difficult thing in this life for us to do is to bring about change in ourselves. Love is supposed to make all things possible, right? That’s what the fairy tales tell us. That is what we have learnt personally from life. I still believe this is true. But there is one scenario unique to human beings I find particularly interesting when considering all that love can do.

Depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) result in unique states of mind where the “enemy” and the “villain” that we fight everyday lives exclusively within our hearts and minds. He may have been created by exposure to psychologically trauma or neurobiochemical imbalances or social oppression and abuse, or any of a myriad of negative human experiences. Yet the outcome of these situations are so common that someone has been able to make lists of the cognitive effects that result. They are described commonly in books and medical and scientific literature and classified into categories that receive the names of “mood disorders”. Depression, anxiety, and PTSD are very common diagnoses given to the people who suffer the effects of having these internal enemies to fight; the low mood, the lack of self-esteem, the sense of worthlessness, the compulsion to self-harm, the feelings of inability to better one’s own situation, and the inability to envision a future different to the inner world they seem trapped in.

I have seen many patients with PTSD, mainly war veterans, but all survivors of some sort of abuse or extremes of human experience. These people have lived through horrible things – and survived! If anybody can be called strong and honorable, it is them. Yet, they often are the first to believe they don’t deserve to be alive or to have good things in life. Bullets kill many soldiers in combat; depression and PTSD kills way too many survivors. People don’t choose to suffer depression, anxiety, or PTSD, the same way none of us choose to voluntarily suffer. And the worst part is that with these psychiatric complaints, you also can’t choose to “just snap out of it”. The goals of treatment in these disorders are not aimed at cure, but at managing symptoms, learning new ways to process information to help stop triggering these inner beasts, and minimizing the number of exacerbations. Of course, there are many ways we go about doing this (medication, psychotherapy, self-directed education, meditation, etc.), but generally there’s no way to completely cure these problems.

But wait, what about love? Doesn’t love “conquer ALL? Doesn’t love give you strength, courage, motivation, hope, etc. to achieve anything in life – even to change the world? The thing with depression, PTSD, and other psychiatric complaints is that the thing to conquer lies within. But love should be able to help you achieve even that, right? Isn’t love also able to change a human being? I used to believe just that.

On the Eminem thing

People think I’m trying to be purposely funny when I describe myself in the “About Me” section as being like Eminem. I’ll be the first to admit I’ve never met Marshall Mathers III, and I’ve never even had the good fortune of being to an Eminem concert. I identify a lot with most of the lyrics of Eminem’s songs, though. A lot of people must; he sells records in the millions of copies. Personally I believe he is a great expressionist, and not only that, he has a very common human story.

There is an Eminem song (Same song & dance) where he is considering different ways to tell his crush how he feels about her (he’s a shy, socially-awkward person like so many of us) and he postulates: "Should I cut off one of my ears and mail it to her? Send her pictures of my collections of skeletons? Or footage of me impaling myself on an elephant's tusk?" This kind of strategy may not occur to everyone, but it does to Eminem because he is he and he thinks the way he does… I keep a small collection of animal skeletons and to me Eminem’s proposition of sharing something dear to him does not seem strange.

I won’t go try to analyse Eminem’s lyrics for anyone, but I would like to share some of them which are the reason I identify with him so much. I guess, the way Jorge Luis Borge’s words always come to mind: ‘each man is every man’ and each man’s story is shared by every man. I have been the “dark phase” Eminem, as much as I have been the Eminem who rejoices in his blessings. We all have to different degrees, I think J

I'm not afraid /To take a stand

Everybody /Come take my hand

We'll walk this road together, through the storm

Whatever weather, cold or warm

Just lettin’ you know that you're not alone

Holla if you feel like you've been down the same road…

****

I got some skeletons in my closet /and I don't know if no one knows it /So before they thrown me inside my coffin and close it /I'm-a expose it... (Cleaning Out my Closet)

Well since age twelve, I've felt like I'm someone else /’Cause I hung my original self from the top bunk with a belt...

And by the way, when you see my dad, /Tell him that I slit his throat in this dream I had. (My Name is)

All I know is I don't want to follow in the footsteps of my dad /’cause I hate him so bad /The worst fear that I had /was growing up to be like his f*ckin’ ass /Man if you could understand /why I am the way that I am... I never dreamt I'd get to the level that I'm at /This is whack! This is more than I ever could have asked... (Saying Goodbye to Hollywood)

Yo, never was a thug, just infatuated with guns...

/I'm a soldier, these shoulders hold up so much /They won't budge, I'll never fall or fold up... (Soldier)

My thoughts are sporadic /I act like I'm an addict /I rap like I'm addicted to smack... (‘Til I Collapse)

Sometimes I feel so alone /I just don't know /feels like I been down this road before /So lonely and cold /it's like something takes over me /Soon as I go home and close the door. (Deja Vu)

I'm just so f*ckin' depressed /I just can seem to get out this slump... I think I'm starting to lose my sense of humour /Everything is so tense and gloom... (Beautiful)

Sometimes I even cut myself to see how much it bleeds /It's like adrenaline, the pain is such a sudden rush for me...

But what's this sh*t you said about you like to cut your wrists too? /I say that sh*t just clownin’, dog /C'mon, how f*cked up is you? /You got some issues, Stan. I think you need some counselling... (Stan)

If I, were to die murdered in cold blood tomorrow /Would you feel sorrow or show love, or would it matter?...

But there's way too much at stake for me to be fake /There's too much on my plate, I’ve come way /too far in this game to turn and walk away...

The only way I'm leavin’ this bitch is suicide... I'm not what ya think /I appear to be f*cked up, mentally endangered /I can't stay away from a razor...

 It hurts when you see your friends turn their back on you, dog /And you ain't got nothing’ left but your word and your balls /And you're stressed from the calls of your new friends /Begging with their hands out...

Death itself can hurt me /Just the thought of dyin’ alone that really irks me (When the Music Stops)

Sometimes I think, there's nothing to live for /I almost break down and cry /Sometimes I think I'm crazy; I'm crazy, oh so crazy! /Why am I here? Am I just wastin’ my time?..

People make jokes, cos they don't understand me /They just don't see my real side /I act like shit don't phase me /Inside it drives me crazy /My insecurities could eat me alive... Sometimes it feels like the world's on my shoulders /Everyone's leanin’ on me /Sometimes it feels like the world's almost over... (Hailie’s Song)

I never would have dreamed in a million years I'd see /so many motherf*ckin’ people, who feel like me /Who share the same views and the same exact beliefs /It's like a f*ckin ARMY marching in back of me (White America)

Yet everybody just feels like they can relate /I guess words are a motherf*cker, they can be great /or they can degrade. Or even worse, they can teach hate /It's like these kids hang on every single statement we make /like they worship us... They say music can alter moods and talk to you /Well can it load a gun up for you and cock it too?... That's why we sing for these kids who don't have a thing /except for a dream and a f*ckin’ rap magazine /Who post pin-up pictures on they walls all day long /Idolize they favourite rappers and know all they songs /Or for anyone who's ever been through sh*t in they lives /'Til they sit and they cry at night wishin’ they'd die /'Til they throw on a rap record and they sit and they vibe /We're nothin to you - but we're the f*ckin’ sh*t in they eyes /That's why we seize the moment, try to freeze it and own it /Squeeze it and hold it, cause we consider these minutes golden /And maybe they'll admit it when we're gone, just let our spirits live on /through our lyrics that you hear in our songs... (Sing For the Moment)

(If it looks like you’ve seen this before, I have posted most of it on my facebook notes before.)

On me... and turning 30

It’s funny, if you ask some people who have really gotten to know me intimately they’ll tell you that I have several different personalities. These people have at times asked me who is the “real” Vanessa. I can tell you straight out that ALL of them are. If you’d met me some years ago and asked me to list the things that to me are the most important in life I would have told you: family, love, expression, enjoyment, spirituality, and work. If you met me at another point in my life I would have answered exactly the same thing – but in a different order! That is where my “inconsistencies” lie, but actually I am just very average J

The self-hating years

The single most hurtful thing ever said to me was “you’ve had a perfect life”. Yeah, it was hurtful because it was said by someone close to me who obviously didn’t know me much at all. I don’t believe there are such things as perfect lives or perfect childhoods, everyone does the best with what they’re given. I don’t know if I am (or was?) autistic to a degree, but I never really connected with anyone as a child. And it didn’t bother me to have no friends; I was quite happy in my own inner world, my make-believe play, and reading books to learn something that interested me. At age 10 I was faced with circumstances that are actually very common in most cultures but that I would never wish upon anyone. As a result of this I lost the ability to trust, to believe, to feel safe and worthwhile. From then on I started hating more than just my own physical self, but also my future self, believing that I deserved nothing good to ever come to me in my life. It was very draining, and my inner world grew increasingly darker and I became more and more self-deprecating.

At about the age of 20, after I had finished my undergraduate degree in science, the self-loathing and self-denial of my own need to be human finally climaxed. I started psychotherapy for the first time then. What came of it? My single greatest victory was to forgive those that had hurt me and to forgive myself for being hurt. It seems so miniscule and meaningless that I can summarise it in one sentence, but the amount of healing the simple act of swapping the words “sorry” for “thank you” is hardly able to be explained. I finally stopped apologising for being Vanessa, for allowing myself as a child to be hurt, and I stopped apologising for the simple fact of being alive. Instead I started to be grateful to be alive and I allowed myself to have (and not feel guilty about having) human needs of personal fulfilment and achievement. It was a very slow process to accept myself, to disrobe myself of the self-loathing, to finally become and be comfortable in being Vanessa in all my forms.

At 24 my curiosity and interest in spiritual matters brought me to commit to Christianity after having studied several theological and philosophical systems for many years. What lead me to finally make this commitment was that I came to understand that it’s ok to not be perfect, it’s human nature, and that the ability to feel connection to God is not barred to me or anyone else regardless of their past, present, or future. That was spiritual commitment and to some extent also fulfilment. During and after this time I also gradually learnt to not hate or feel ashamed of my physical appearance, of my lack of social skills, of my naivety, and of all these things I had for which I felt I couldn’t be like “normal” people. I guess in all this I may have eventually overshot the mark  :P

The self-loving years

I was around 26 before I could bear the thought of being ok with being seeing as me, as a complete and separate person of my own. I guess by that stage I had allowed people to get to know me, all aspects of me, and to become my friends who I could trust and expect some trust and caring in return. I grew more confident in many things also. I finally was not afraid or concerned to be seen for me. I was nearly 27 before I finally allowed myself to remove my clothes off in front of another human being – someone of my choosing and with my full consent. This part was the hardest step for me, the rest was quite easy. And in fact it probably got to be a bit too easy J

My mistake was that after I learnt to love myself, I probably started to love only myself. I started to consider romantic partners as purely things to increase my own enjoyment and happiness. They say that people with histories of abuse most often become either one of two things in their future relationships: the abuser or the abused. I had decided from when I was 20 and started therapy, that I would never again be a victim of abuse. And so here I was, playing out another role. I had never had a time in my life when I didn’t feel guilty about being alive, but maybe at times it would have been good to at least feel pity for others. Needless to say, several  partners later, I still wasn’t a winner. Despite me finally being able to love myself and form sort of bonds with others, I still hadn’t learnt what it was like to love others. I mean, of course, what it was like to be in love.

The loving years

Wait, having sex and making love aren’t the same things?... No. I eventually learnt that too. June 2010, or sometime after that, I fell in love for the first time in my life! How did I know it was different? Because I found myself missing someone else, wanting someone else’s approval, feeling safe and confident to be associated with someone, feeling a part of something very special. It didn’t last long and I was a different kind of sad to what I’d previously known when it ended. But you know what bothered me most about it ending? Because after all those years it had taken me to convince myself that I was a worthy human being, the overwhelming message I was getting was that I wasn’t worthy of another being’s sacrifice to be with me. My partner wouldn’t sacrifice any of the things I would have sacrificed in a heartbeat to be with them. And that hurt me so much. It was like being told all over again that I wasn’t a worthy human being. But this time I didn’t believe it for long, because sometimes all you can do is let go and remember that regardless of what someone may think of me, I am still Vanessa.

And then the unthinkable happened and I fell in love for the second time in my life. Wow! What a blessing it was. It was beyond what I had ever imagined;  my new love met and exceeded every standard I ever had. This was truly the love of my life, the one person you could have sworn was fabricated purely using every guideline for a good person I had in my mind. Words can’t do this story justice. Of course, I was in love with this person so you’d be right in saying I am biased, but I didn’t care what anyone had to say. The only approval I needed in this world was from this one person . Truly, never have I felt so secure, so safe, so myself, so part of something greater than special, than when I was part of this partnership. Then the worst thing happened! The worst thing to have happened to me at this moment in time after what I’ve been through, I mean. There were reasons for it, but I was left alone again. I only wish I had been given a chance to correct my flaws, that whatever good was at first seen in me (what I think I see in myself too) would have been worthy of another chance, of a sacrifice. Or am I really not as worthy as I think I am?

The years of being loved

I hope in future to be loved, but it’s not enough just to be loved here and now. I hope to have someone fall in love with me truly, to want me, to wish to be with me, and that this wish is enough to motivate the things every successful relationship needs: compromise and self-sacrifice. I am worth it, right? I think I am. It’s been 30 years, and I’m ready to be loved the way I eventually learnt to love too. I am ready for so many things. But I am ready mostly to say that only God can judge me for my life.