RECOVERY

Vengeance. 

It is a powerful motivator. 

It compels incredible acts. Acts of unmitigated cruelty, acts of reckless courage and acts of destructive rage.

The trauma manifests itself in many different ways. 

The manifestations of trauma is myriad and shocking. 

The process of healing tears down this outflows of trauma and shocks you. 

The process of healing is quite a bit more frightening than the trauma itself. 

You can't hide from the healing. You have to experience it. 

It is suddenly shockingly clear that you have hidden your personality behind trauma responses. 

What do you do then? 

How do you distinguish the trauma response from who you are? 

Just Me.

UNPOPULAR OPINION

9/11 2001. 

It was the day the world changed. Conventional wisdom went out of the window that day, it came crashing down with those two beautiful buildings. 

I am sitting through the documentary series they made to commemorate the tragedy. It is a series documenting the day through the eyes of the survivors. This was a tragedy of epic proportions, made worse because the whole world was watching it in real time. It was a sign of global connectivity, a tragedy that touched millions of lives across the world. 

It was also the start of the 'War on Terror.' Americans rallied. They reacted. It was a tragedy, a disaster, a catastrophe. It was an act of terrorism that needed to be avenged. America sent its agents and soldiers out into the world, fully suited up, armed to the teeth with only one command; Avenge Us. Vengeance was sought and vengeance was had. It was called justice. 

Even today, the world mourns. The grief is real. The disaster was real. The lives lost were real. However, Americans live their lives thinking they were the only victims. The truth is much more complex. These terrorists utilised innocent people, hijacked public transport to carry out their heinous act. There is excusing their actions. There is no condoning their actions. That is not the question. The question that we should ask ourselves is this. Can we understand their actions? It is easy to dismiss it as fanaticism. When you demonise the terrorist, you dehumanise them. You dismiss them as psychopaths, as bad people whose actions cannot possibly be understood. When you block off understanding, you lose the chance to know. 

What I think National Geographic should do, is make a series of documentaries; A Day in Afghanistan. They should do a similar style documentary, told through the eyes of the survivors of US drone strikes in Afghanistan. Do a minute by minute documentary of a 'righteous strike' planned and executed by American soldiers. I think this will cause a shift in many opinions. The difference between what happened in the US on that one day and what happens on a semi regular basis in Afghanistan is the fact that one act was perpetrated by individuals and another was carried out by a uniformed soldiers in service of their country. In the purest sense of the word, the Americans on Afghani soil are terrorists too. There is no denying that either. 

Just. Me. 

REVELATIONS

Unethical Decision Making.

It can be assumed that this is something that would only matter in an organisation that deals with life or death situations. Organisations that could cause bodily harm or the devastation of livelihood. However, unethical decisions abound in any organisation, big or small. 

Unethical Decisions are essentially decisions that are blatantly unfair or exploitative. Any decision made from a primary position of power serving only self-interests. 

You may be fooled into believing that only bad people do bad things. It is a belief many of us hold dear. That a kind person, a fair person, a friendly person could not possibly make unfair or unethical decisions. This is a fallacy. This notion of good and evil is quite naïve. No one is entirely good nor entirely evil. Serial killers have families and God fearing, family men have created and dropped atom bombs on whole cities! 

You can look at yourself as a truly good person, yet lay the groundwork for unbelievable miscarriages of justice. 

Just Me!  

CONCLUSIONS

Solitary confinement is a cruel and unusual punishment. 

Let that sink in a minute. 

I grew up watching movies like Shawshank Redemption and even movies as recent as Ocean's Eight referenced solitary confinement. It turns out that the silver lining from the pandemic lockdown is the discovery that solitary confinement amounts to mental torture. People across the world that are sheltering in place, are experiencing the effects of solitary confinement. 

Imagine my surprise when after being told this fact, I make the secondary discovery that I am experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from solitary confinement!

No, I have not been in solitary confinement. Let me qualify that. I have not been in physical solitary isolation. However, I have been in solitary isolation inside my head for my entire life. Hence, the PTSD. It is galling to discover that I have given myself PTSD. 

How did I do that? 

I don't fit in. After years of trying to fit into family that don't understand you, friends who think you odd, society that derides you for failing to conform, I looked for somewhere to hide. My elegant solution was to create a little cell block in my head and confine myself to it. 

I used it as a survival mechanism and it worked for a good long while. However, I have the time now to exit survival mode and thrive. 

So I shall leave you with this:

Forgive yourself for the things you did to survive. Get better, be better, get healthy. 

Just Me. 

PROCESSING

 I am having trouble reconciling my values, my wants and social pressure. 

I have always had issues with my body weight and my body image. I thought that the operation took care of my issues but it turns out, it possibly only distracted me temporarily. I am still bulimic. I am still overweight and I still can't control myself around food. 

I was tempted by the Healthpointe programme because it seemed easy but really all it is, is a fancy Atkins programme. It has supplements built in. It also has a coach and the usual measure yourself and all that jazz. I am not going to tie myself to the programme, however I would like to re-programme my health. I think I do need to build some muscle and gain some fitness. So that is what I am going to do. I am going to work out constantly. Get back into my mindset of loving exercise. Dancing and walking and yoga. I am going to start the weight training so I can increase my metabolism. 

I wanted to try this programme as it is. I don't think that is a good idea anymore. I don't want to be involved in the programme with all the strings attached. I will do it without all the rigid Fascist monitoring. I find myself getting so angry about it. I don't want to be monitored. I can monitor myself. I am making a personal choice. However I don't like being told that I must do something in this way or it will not work. I am angry that this apparently brilliant thing that has worked for everyone cannot work for me. I want it to. I want to be like everyone else. 

I have come to realise that this is a GI Joe fallacy I have created for myself. If I can accept that everyone is different and one size cannot fit all, this is another example of exactly that. 

So I am going to do what I want to do. I will increase my nutrition because my joints are giving me trouble. I will eat right because I am putting on weight. I will start exercising frenetically because I want to get my fitness back. I want to dance. I want to wear nose bleed heels. I want to wear pretty, pretty dresses and nothing is going to stop me. 

Just Me.

HAPPY PLACE

I am grateful for the time I have found to improve myself. 

I have come to realise that I am happiest when I am learning something new and exercising my mind. 

I am grateful for my mind. I am filled with gratitude that I have the capability of pursuing my love for learning. I am grateful that I have these pursuits to fill my time. 

I am grateful that I am expanding my mind and learning new skills. 

I am grateful that my love of learning has allowed to rediscover myself. 

Just Me

CLEANSING

Ordinarily I am quite capable of defending myself. However at the end of 2019, I was at my lowest. 

I had lost staff that I had worked very hard to build. I was looking down the barrel of a long restart and rebuild. It was gut wrenching. I had barely wrapped my head around it when I was also handed the Events role while she used up her accumulated vacation time. It was taxing and tiring and not something I could possibly fathom doing as a dual role. It was at that point that I was offered the role full time. I was not convinced and I did not think it through. I heard "do us a favour." I also realised instead of re-starting in Manja, I would be actually re-starting in a completely new position. At that point it was also quite apparent that had I refused, I would in effect be doing both jobs for as long as I was able. No replacement had been found or even sought for the Events position. My criteria for taking the position was that it would not compromise Manja. 

I took it as a challenge to myself. Then I met Reuben. I understood the position he was in. I was the owner's cousin. I had years of experience on him within the organisation. I understood that he would be insecure and looking to make his mark. The first meeting with him was a disaster. I thought I would lay my cards on the table. I told him I was not motivated my money and I completely stunned him. He had no idea how to process that world view. Instead of trying, he decided that I was being coy and/or dishonest. He decided then and there what kind of person I was and then proceeded to ignore any and all evidence that indicated anything else. At the end of the meeting he told me to 'be motivated by money.' In hindsight and with the benefit of some distance, it was a humongous red flag. Here is a manager essentially in the Sales position who isn't motivated by money. It was blatantly ridiculous that no one in management flagged that - including the idiot (ME) that volunteered for the position. 

It was a decidedly downhill journey from then on. I am a very different person to him and he had no idea how to deal with me. He convinced himself that I was a this type of individual, wrongly, and then proceeded to only look for evidence to support his erroneous belief. In addition to this job that I detested, this manager that I disliked and who disliked me, I was also asked to do even more within the organisation. There were moments of reprieve, but on the whole it was catastrophic to my mental health. It was a constant case of gaslighting. He felt off balance and for him it was a case of a good defence being a great offence. Had I been at the top of my game, I would have told him where to stick it. However, his great offence did the job it was intended to do. I was off balance and overworked; it completely tanked my confidence. 

I am looking back and trying to imagine at what point I could have clawed my way back. I honestly cannot see my point of no return. I hung on for a year until I could not hang on anymore. 

Just Me. 

REFLECTION

 Letting go is never easy. 

The hardest part is what comes next. Once you've cut ties with the past that's holding you back, how do you move forward to the future?

Do you analyse every moment of your past? 

Do you explore reasons and patterns and events? Or do you cut your losses and move on?

I have a tendency to fixate. I have a tendency to over analyse and it is not always the best thing to do. I am learning that knowing the reason for something doesn't always help in preventing or changing the pattern. However some analysis is necessary. You must recognise the pattern. That means you have to look back to see patterns forming. Once that is done however, you need not dwell on the whys and why nots, instead all that is necessary is to evaluate if the pattern works for you and how to change the pattern if necessary. 

It may seem on the face of it that the body's physiological response to emotion and to stress is actually the same. However, it is not. While emotion is necessary and aids in the interpretation of our world, a stress reaction is not. 

Looking over a cliff causes an emotional reaction that we identify as fear. The body prepares itself. The lungs start drawing in breath starting the power plants in the muscles. The blood vessels dilate bringing more oxygen rich blood to the muscle. The body start secreting sweat to get started on cooling down the body. 

A stress reaction like anxiety, starts off in the same way and perhaps can be mistaken for fear. However, the lungs don't draw in breath effectively because the hormones that are starting the process are completely different. The fear or flight response doesn't fully kick in. It's a short circuit that happens and the energy builds with nowhere to go. The energy doesn't dissipate, and in looking for an outlet the chemicals end up in the brain, re-wiring and re-writing neural pathways. 

The first step in the healing process is to recognise and differentiate emotions and stress reactions. 

Baby steps. 

Just Me. 

TRIGGERS

The key to managing anxiety and depression, is self-awareness. 

It is said that knowledge is power. I very much agree. I believe in knowledge. I believe that knowledge grants you control. It at least gives you the illusion of control. I understand intellectually, that control is oftentimes illusory and fleeting. However, managing my anxiety has always depended on managing the illusion of control. I convince myself that I am in control. I convince myself by gaining knowledge. 

Knowledge to me is the ultimate power. I expend a lot of energy figuring out how things work so that I can make it work for me. It takes me down the path of overthinking perhaps, but it also keeps me from spinning out. 

I hate being denied knowledge. I refuse to take things on faith. I bristle at being told to simply follow instructions. I refuse to be monitored. I am accountable to no one but myself. 

I don't see that as something to be changed. I can understand being accountable when it is a job that I am being paid to do. I refuse to be hounded into watching what I eat. I didn't join a gym because I didn't want this nonsense. I don't care if it's my best friend, I refuse to be watched and judged. It's not happening. I have enough of that to deal with. I am not subjecting myself to this. 

Just Me.  

A FRESH START

Tonight, goodbyes were said. 

Goodbye to the last decade of my life. 

Goodbye to colleagues that have become family. 

Goodbye to the place that had become a second home. 

This role has demanded a lot from me. I would like to think that I rose to the challenges that it presented. There were many challenges, systems I had to learn from scratch, by necessity. Operations that were full on. A restaurant full of people and a team of untrained staff. It was a hell of a time. We persevered. We overcame. I like to believe that I had something to do with that. I believe sometimes that things happen automatically around me. It's difficult for me to believe that I had anything to do with the success that restaurant enjoyed in the early days. 

Looking back even now, I can only see the flaws. I can only dwell on the hesitations and the swallowed criticisms. It is in fact easier for me to dwell on the fact that it went from that success to this downfall on my watch. 

I am grateful for this job. I came into it at a point in my life when I needed to believe that I was worth something. I needed to prove to myself that I could hold down a job because for the longest time, that was a deep seated fear within me. After all the trials in my life, that was a fear that never left me, until I took this job. I proved to myself that I could do something. Keep to a timing, run operations, plan operations. 

I am grateful for all the opportunities that I had with this job. I think in a lot of ways, I squandered quite a bit of it. However, on balance, I think that I gained more from this job that it took from me. 

Just Me!

GRATITUDE

I have made it a resolution to keep a gratitude journal. 

Of course, I procrastinated to the point of exhaustion. 

So here is my journal entry for the day, entirely lacking in finesse. 

1. I am grateful for a family that stands by decision to put my mental health ahead of my career. 

2. I am grateful for forgiving friends who readily accept my absence and welcome me back into their fold. 

3. I am grateful for the friend who has held me accountable for my failings as a friend. It is a mistake I will not repeat again. 

4. I am grateful for parents who are even now striving to plan for my future, although I am fully capable of taking care of myself. 

5. I am grateful for the ability to offer assistance that makes a difference to the persons assisted. 

6. I am grateful for each day and every day. 

Just Me. 

TAKEN FOR GRANTED

A refrain has been echoing in my head. 

"To be, or not to be, that is the question: 

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer 

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles 

And by opposing end them."

Of course Hamlet was contemplating suicide and I am merely contemplating a change in career. A change in career is life altering. One might even say life ending. To be honest, it feels almost like giving up. 

A change of career this late in the game is actually quite terrifying. I don't know if my experience counts for anything. I am certain my degree doesn't count for much. The current situation is insane. 

However, it is at this point, that personal well-being should be taken into consideration. I need to figure out what makes me happy. I need to know what my aspirations are before I can achieve them. 

So now I have taken the plunge and resigned. During the exit interview, I realised that perhaps I did not fight hard enough to make things the way I wanted. That's my lesson learnt. 

And now to confront my long time fear. Am I good enough for the job market?

Just Me!