STAND AND DELIVER - THE WHITE MAN SAYS SO.

So I got a call asking if I wanted to do some market research, said yes as long as it doesn't involve alcohol (non-halal stuff) and the bright young spark on the other side of the phone launched into a quite abrasive way of asking questions about Islam like 'Did you as a female choose to be Muslim because your religion is so misogynistic etc'. 

Credit to him for actually asking and listening to the answers, and sometimes trying to be polite about it (actually zero times), and 15minutes in I tried to give him an easy out because I had corrected every single piece of garbage 'knowledge' he had spewed and didn't want to make it him feel more awkward or shallow so I asked him how old he is (21) and what he was studying (some combination of economics and law) and I was like oh yeah my cousin is studying law - and then - wait for it - the misogynistic tapeworm automatically assumed the cousin is a guy. His brain would have imploded if he found out that my mother qualified as a doctor twice, with the second one being in her 3rd (4th?) language and simultaneously dealing with 5 children. 

I got all of the horrible questions - beheadings, deliberately dying as a martyr, polygamy (this was a good one - 'we are animal and we're not designed to be with one person for life, we're supposed to SPREAD OUT SEED, but having casual sex partners is okay and different to a woman allowing her husband to add a second wife for whom he's has to provide for equally etc. is wrong') and lots of "I haven't read the Quran but I watched this documentary and it was really good and the I read the Quran (?but you said you haven't??) says women are inferior" and it went on and on and on in this vein. 

And he had actually just called to ask if I'd like like to taste test some lemonade for their research group. Like, WHAT THE ACTUAL FCK??? I couldn't remember a single scholar to recommend watching on youtube because there I was enjoying my mature cheddar and BAM! STAND AND DEFEND YOUR INDIVIDUAL IDENTITY AS WELL AS THOSE OF 1.7 BILLION OTHERS BECAUSE THIS 21YO MALE HAS WATCHED A DOCUMENTARY THAT SHOWED THAT MOST MUSLIMS ARE JUST HUMANS.

And all I had wanted to do was take a lunch break and eat my mature cheddar. 

S.

PS I'm not as angry as this post may suggest, but he interrupted my cheese time. Luckily mum called soon after to tell me she loves me and how I was such a good little girl back in the day. Nothing quite like praise from someone you love to perk you up again :) Also, he's not going to learn if he doesn't ask questions, and only God knows the many and varied silly things I've said and done out of pure ignorance. I'm glad if I can be the person to pull someone over to the light, and I would like documented credit to me if this interaction contributes to his learning or broadening of his mind in some way.

S.

Even lateral movement is still movement.

Sometimes you catch yourself routinely watering a dead plant over and over again, like there is some hope that are is some tiny part of the plant is alive deep down, and this tiny part will come out and eventually bloom. I’ve been doing this lately for a fern given out as wedding favours at the wedding of a dear friend, so this anecdote can stop here and be literal, told as a joke.  

But I have many feelings that keep wanting to come out, so there is more. 

I guess that desperate hope is what I find when I keep trying to manage stress and sadness and fears and obesity. I keep plugging away and going through the motions in the hope that there exists a tiny healthy bright part of me that will make it all worth it. Often when you try really hard, your only consolation is that you tried at all. I desperately want to bet better, but maybe what counts - and what really gives value to my person and my life - is the fact that i’m chipping away at this mountain, even if all i have is a butter knife (which i admit i only use to put the right about of hummus on my wafer crackers).

Peace and love,

S.

You want rewiring done right, you have to do it yourself.

I have more feelings to share and it's one of these things that fill in some small part of your heart/soul and it's not a huge stride but it is a shuffle forward. This piece will one day be fleshed out into the most revolutionary of all political compendiums, but here is the first draft.

---------------

Learning to deal with new/current/old things using a new approach means you're literally rewiring your brain. The older you are, the harder it gets, not just because certain pathways have become very strong, but also because you don't necessarily have the means to hijack an existing network to link new thoughts and habits together to your core and growing new branches towards other dendrites takes ages. But you'll get there.

Learning to stay calm - to suppress and redirect the aspects of your flight/fight/freeze of your stress response - that's really tough and so, so, SO hard. But you can do it, because the next time you ask a older privileged white man about how to find a mentor and he immediately tells you that he understands what you're going through and that he has a a good friend who is Indian, you are able to actually say with polite words that 'yeah that's awesome, thank you for your business card, will totes come to you for career/life advice'. And you will do this without crying, or breaking the pen your holding, or literally slamming your head into a brick wall.

You will do this because this person's ignorance is not your fault or your enemy. Yeah, the three-year-old wants to shout NO, the teenager wants to roll her eyes, the young adult wants scream with the injustice of his misconception,. But you have disconnected the reactionary driver, and you deal with the situation with the default politeness you've been working on, and send a few thoughts down to the big processing centre to file away as 'brownie points for self-restraint'.

You are exposing old networks of anxiety and frustration to a pacifist's approach, teaching those high-strung neurones to reach for this new piece of golden nugget with soft hands and a softer heart.

Peace and love,

S.

Procrastination and the thoughts you have long after a conversation is over.

Okay, so I'm having trouble focusing on this assignment that's due soon, so I'm going tell you a story instead.

Back in the day, when I was young and yet to find a white hair on my head, this guy told me that the idea of paying zero interest on loans (interest is forbidden under shariah laws regarding business) is putting undue stress on the poorer people in society.

Wth, right?

I tried to explain it to him - it's not a difficult idea to understand, the fact that not charging interest on loans is in the best interest of those who have the least amount of money - and he responded with 'well I did a semester of economics at Melbourne Uni and you haven't studied any economics so I'm better qualified' (paraphrased) and I was like ???

In the naïveté of my youth and the profound sense of anger I feel at every injustice in the world, I got worked up about this silly person and his silly understanding of how exploitative interest is. In fact, I'm getting annoyed thinking about it right now. Why do I care so much about this incident, so many years on?

But that's not the point of the story.

The point is that I was young and silly and did not have the presence of mind to take a step back and try to understand where this guy's silliness came from. Here was a privileged white boy trying to tell me that my religion was wrong for making it easier for people of lower income to buy the same things as the 1%, and nothing I said was going to change his mind.

So why didn't I understand that people are funny and find it hard to let go of any idea that's comforting to them, regardless of how wrong it is? Kind of like how I know that lots of carbs aren't healthy but they make me so happy, and telling me that carbs are bad isn't going to make me happy or change the eating habits of an obese generation. Change doesn't come from arguing with an idiot, and, if you're a more benevolent person than me, you won't label the idiot in the first place.

Change comes from your own insight and subsequent actions that may help others achieve insight as well. Not that you can predict or direct insight. Some of the brightest people you know will have the least insight into their own selves and behaviours. It's not something that's dependent on intelligence or knowledge or how nice you think you are/try to be. I guess it's a mixture of life and luck - you happen to be in a particular situation or mood and the right particles collide to set off flashes in your brain and for a split second you GET it. Hopefully you can hold on to that glimpse into the workings of the universe, but if you don't, don't stress, because it gets easier the more you open yourself up to it.

I feel like I was trying to tell you something really profound and also take a passive aggressive dig at the guy who annoyed me (obviously I posted something on fb and he messaged to say sorry and i was like 'nah it's cool i would have told you if i had a problem with you'- a complete lie, btw) and I haven't quite done the first bit. What I have done, though, is put off working on this assignment.

Back to it, I guess.

Peace and love,

S.

Two thoughts collide.

I had this weird moment of realisation last night, on walking into the house.

On my short drive home I was having an imaginary conversation in my head, and I had a sudden flashback to when I was a teenager - I used to think that I was going through phases after all of my friends were done with that phase, like I was somehow lagging behind in emotional and social development.

And last night I was having this imagined conversation where I explain that mental illness stunts your growth, especially in terms of emotional maturity and insight. And this suddenly clicked - I was lagging behind my classmates in the phases teenagers/young people go through because I have had anxiety issues my whole life. My brain was (?is) being occupied by more than what it is normal for others, and my attention is being distorted by a constant and burning sense embarrassment and anxiousness in any and every situation.

It doesn't sound spectacular as I type this and try to think of better words to describe what happened, but suffice it to say that I had an unexpected and intense glimpse of insight into myself. It was one of those rare moments of connection and understanding of how life works, and being okay with it all.

Peace and love,
S.

Mid-20s can hit you like a wayward train.

Sometimes good things happen and sometimes bad things happen.

My problem has always been in the planning and foresight department. When something bad happens I forget that it will pass. I forget all good feelings and thoughts. And I just want the world to end. When good things happen, I forget that this, too, is transient. I forget about the problems I still have to deal with and the stressors that are coming up. I forget to work for my future. Despite all of this, I also forget to be in the moment, so the joy itself isn't appreciable either.

I received feedback on some ethics and law reflection journals and it was a real knock-me-down. The perfect reminder that I am not infallible, that I do not have a single thing that I am good at. I have always thought - perhaps wanted more than actually thought - that I can write and reflect well. This may have been the case some 10 years ago when I was still posting on my blog, which would be updated with teenage angst every second day. But I have stopped journaling and stopped writing for so long now, and it slipped my mind that things don't stay the same. Your talents don't grow or maintain themselves if you give no effort to them.

Today I find myself in a slightly melancholic state. I have glad that my friends will be interns next year, and yet I am so desperately sad that I will be alone as I go through the year and a half that remains. They have so many other friends, other supports and networks around them. But I have none and am unlikely to suddenly find any. I think the worst part is that I am always so desperately eager to make friends and hang out for the friends that I have, and it takes me by surprise when one of actually does something kind for me. I am used to driving the ~40minutes it takes to get to the library or friend's house but have never had the courage to ask anyone to do the same for me. So yesterday when a couple of them drove out of their way to pick me up, I was both embarrassed and bewildered. I don't know why I felt either these things. Surely, I understand by now that friendship is a two-way street? I think I am embarrassed by how desperately I want friends and kindness in my life. Especially given my entire friendship history - I was always the one who was keen to travel two hours to see high school friends and they were keen to travel two hours but not in my direction. Sad.

So I am proof that teenage angst does not doesn't not suddenly let go of its hold on you because you are not longer a teenager. I am jealous of my friends' friendships with each other, and I am insecure in my relationship with them. In some ways I don't feel worthy of their goodness, but I think there must be more it than that.

I think I'll leave this emotional word-vomit here and find a distraction.

Peace and love,

S.

Tea time, no punctuation.

I want to drink black tea and write poetry about how it reflects the depth of my soul but really it’s just dark liquid that will stain a page but not your heart and the bitterness you relish when it’s warm turns stagnant before you’ve reached the bottom of the mug.

Hermit

Like a little hermit crab
In a little hermit shell
I carry my world
On my shoulders
And as the ocean crashes in
I retreat into my little hermit home
And find peace
In my little hermit head

S.

May

May the homeward-bound
rest their feet,
and their souls
find peace.

May the ink that writes
never dry unwritten,
and if the pages are found
their secrets are unhidden.

May your heart keep beating
even as you die,
and remind you
that you once were alive.

S.

That feeling of brittleness but in your face and heart.

I saw my GP today and he said that I was looking much better and more confident today than several months ago, and I nearly started crying again. I held it together, mostly I just didn't want to contradict or disappoint him, but perhaps also because he deserves at least one session in which I don't bawl my eyes out because I'm so stressed.

So instead I told him that I was worried that I have pernicious anaemia and either lupus or rheumatoid arthritis. He agreed to a blood test to help alleviate some stress. Bless him. But I still want to cry.

Sometimes life seems okay as you float by on a superficial level, but then you stop and think for a second and you realise that you are still in this grey, muddy pit and you have just been trying to delude yourself into thinking you see colour in the hole that keeps pulling you in.

I often find myself telling people that I'm just stressed about uni, assignments, etc. but in reality, I don't feel anything except for numb and miserable at the same time. Yeah, I'm stressed about uni and how behind I am, but what's the point in stressing about something you don't think you have the power to change? The reasonable part of your brain tells you that stresses will always be there, but that they don't have to affect you so awfully. Then reality suggests that perhaps there is no hope and therefore no point in stressing, and this stresses you out more but without knowing exactly why you're stressed.

I'm not sure where I'm going with any of this (as ever). The point is that he was super nice and thought I was doing better than I think I am, and I feel so awful for disappointing him with both the not feeling great and with the cliched med student/annoying know-it-all patient who thinks they know what's happening.

Plus I haven't been sleeping well lately (keep waking up like 7 times a night) and the lack of sleep is making me feel weepy. Gah. I'm such a cliche.

Peace and love,

S.

Caffeine to bring you up, happy thoughts to keep you there.

Sometimes I am struck (and paralysed) by how awkward I am, but then I drink coffee and the caffeine doesn't care about small talk or funny looks, just how much happiness and wonder is in the world around me.

Obvs the coffee doesn't fix anything, people still think I'm either weird or unapproachable, but at least my inside perfectly correlates with my outside, you know? I like the idea of being an authentic person, no lying to myself regardless of what others think. Of course I want to be a decent person, but what is the point of being a good person on the outside only to have a mess of hypocrisy underneath it all?

I'm pretty sure it's the caffeine talking now, but sometimes life is superb, once you remove yourself form the littleness of your immediate surroundings/situation and connect with life and the universe on a happier wavelength. For example, I just came back from ward rounds then coffee with the ortho team (interns and registrars) and the other med student was chatting away with them and they were responding to her and ignoring me, but do I need the approval of those people in that moment? It's okay to have nothing to say, and if my aim in life is to be a decent person to interact with, not having funny stories to tell doesn't really mean much, does it? I can still be easy-going in my interactions with people and not get in their way. They won't like me in the way they like the other med student, but I'm also not offending anyone, and eventually I will find my niche.

That sounds a bit sad, but I have so many moments in my life where I connect with people or situations and everything in life seems to be dancing to the same harmony and that's a beautiful feeling, like tapping into the fundamental frequency of the universe and seeing the perfection of every object and movement in relation to the rest.

I will worry about my awkwardness and lack of approval from others later when I'm feeling down. No need to spoil this high with stressing about what I can't change, and to some extent, don't have any need to change.

Peace and love,

S.

The answer to your midnight existential crisis is always 'there is no point'.

I just came back from an ortho tute at the hospital, where I literally knew nothing.

I almost got away with saying and knowing nothing, until the end where the consultant noted that I hadn't contributed. I was supposed to do an ulnar nerve examination, and I'm not going to lie, I couldn't remember anything about the ulnar nerve, including where it runs or what it is. He was cool about it and I fluffed around a bit (which always looks so much worse than straight-out saying 'I don't know'). And then I didn't understand what he was explaining either.

I think I felt the need to pretend that I knew what I was doing because everyone else knew the answer to every question the consultant had asked/has ever asked and I don't want to give away how stupid or slack I am, even thought it's the truth. I don't even know why I'm so slack or why I don't remember anything I learn.

Anyway, point is, I nearly cried in tute, and I sort of got teary on the way home, and I'm struggling not to cry now.

And this is not what I want my life to be.

TD has pointed out a few times that happiness doesn't last, just like any other feeling, and I know this now and I knew it before she said it, but the problem is that I don't want my lows to be so very low and I don't want to be sad for so much of my life.

On the way out of the tute, I was already contemplating ways to quit med or alternative careers or what I'm going to say to people once I've failed this year.

I go straight to catastrophising every thing that goes wrong, and I can't stop because things have been bad for so long that there's no way anything good can happen ever again.

(See what I mean?)

Sometimes, in the imaginary conversations in my head with imaginary people I will never come across (their faces are of the people who I know now since I can't actually imagine them), these people observe that I seem very depressed, and my response is, 'How can you not be?' and this makes me feel more sad because it's true. How can you live in any form of society, seeing how terrible people can be, seeing the worst parts of yourself in everyone around you, and still find some level of contentment? How can you exist and not see the pointlessness of it all? You're born and you die and in the space in between you reproduce or contribute to society in some other way, and for what? What is the point? So your genes survive and the human race continues, but so what? What is this end point that we're running towards and what is the point of running to it and why does anyone care about anything? What is stopping everyone from just curling up in a corner and letting death take us?

When I'm feeling more positive, I say to these imaginary people that you're born and you die and the best you can hope for is some form of distraction in between to take your mind off the inevitable darkness that will come with death anyway, so there's no need to give in to it now. What stresses you out will eventually kill you, and life is pointless but if you want your death to hold meaning, find something worth worrying about and let that kill you instead.

Sometimes I try to compose poetry and pretend that the poetry of misery is the most profound song the universe can strive for. In 'Not Another Happy Ending' the main character is accused of worshipping her own pain, and I can see how I'm doing that to myself - trying to build my misery into a shining throne from which I can judge others and put my own ego on a pedestal.

I know the reasonable words but I don't feel them. Even when I say them to others, I'm just throwing out the buzzwords in an effort to maintain this facade of an intelligent and hard done by innocent, to somehow absolve myself of any responsibility for my own failures and weaknesses.

I wonder when it will end, and how it will feel to pay penance for the lies I tell myself.

S.

Procrastination and personality and problems.

Currently at med school we're learning about the brain and it's multitude of roles and possible dysfunctions. Obviously, I am drawn to diagnosing myself with every new disorder I learn, even though I know I don't have it.

Knowing alone isn't enough to rest your worries, though.

I'm not quite sure how you learn or teach someone else to go from worry to acceptance and calm. For example, people with OCD know that their thoughts and actions are not reasonable, but they are still compelled to continue with them. How do you tell your brain to switch off? How do you join the hard facts of knowledge with the feelings in the now and present?

One of my biggest struggles is with procrastination and stress - I know that they are neither productive nor fun, and yet I am forever in their mess. It's not like I don't know how to study, or that I should study. I just can't. And more to the point, don't.

Fixing this sort of chronic battle with myself is exhausting, and small steps take the longest of time. I know I am better today than I was 7 years ago, and that I will be better still in 7 years time, but that is a total of 14 years to get to where other people were at right at the beginning. Again, I know that comparing yourself to the average/others is unhelpful, that everyone has their own journey etc. etc. But I have no excuse for being the way I am now, except for laziness and lack of control over my own mind.

And I don't know how to fix it. There's no pill to fix a rubbish personality. I am responsible for chaos in my life, not some underlying illness or external monsters. I know this. But I don't feel it, because if I did I'd be changing it.

Maybe my problem is a disconnect from reality?

As I write this I am in the library, supposed to be studying for an upcoming test. I know that it will take me ages to get through the 6 weeks of examined material. And yet I'm on here, writing mediocre melodrama.

How.

Do.

I.

Make.

It.

Stop.

???

Peace and love,

S.

Republic of My Heart

Oh Republic of my Heart
Don't falter in the breaking dawn
The sun will rise
And the blood in your streets
Will transform from seas of black
To warm ruby glow

Stand tall!
Stand tall
And take what is yours
But take care!
Keep at bay
the wolves of your past
with the fire in your depths
And the walls around your softness

Republic!
No one owns you
And you are uncaged
Step forward from your past
And know that I alone
Will hold you
And defend you


S.

The questions that keep us up at night.

The heaviness and warmth of instant sleep - the perfect example of you don't know what you had till it's gone.

Keeping a stable and regular routine - just keeping up with life - is exhausting. Fitting in enough sleep is a struggle, and even more so when you can't turn off your consciousness. Here I will expound on some of the thoughts that keep me up at night. Often I think I am alone in my thoughts, but we are never as special as we think we are - millions before us and millions after have the same thoughts, and sharing them is a comfort in its own way. So here goes.

1. Where do tears come from? Does your body make them on demand? Or is there a reservoir full of tears, just waiting to me shed? Is this why you feel so heavy sometimes, like you haven't cried in a while and you really need to?

2. Why do we have feelings? Emotional feelings, I mean. How does this feeling take place? Where do feelings come from, and where do they go when you forget about them for a while? How do you make the connection between a good thing and a good feeling in yourself? Pain, hunger, etc is easy enough to comprehend, because it has evolutionary and survival value. But what about jealousy? How does your body make the connection with something so abstract?

3. What is a thought? How exactly are opinions and memories stored? I understand the parts of the brains involved and so on, but I don't get how something abstract is stored in a physical location. Kind of like typing on a keyboard and letters coming up on the screen. It's basically the sort of stuff that you can't explain to your grandparents.

4. Why do people feel the need to explain Australian-ness to me? Why do they feel the need to say, 'Well, I'm Australian and this is how/what we say/do?' When you raise the point with them they get very defensive about their racist tendencies, or their white privilege, but their actions are very hard to ignore.

5. Why do people feel the need to look at me, say sorry, and then continue to say something very racist? Does prefacing it with an apology absolve them of their sins? Basically, why are people so sh*t?

This took a downwards turn, so I might stop for a bit. As important as it is to express strong feelings, the majority of mine seem to be angry on a massive scale. I don't want my sense of self to be tied to this. Deep breath.

Peace and love,

S.