Last night, we daw a documentary on TV that tried to explore why women wear headscarfs or burquas in Europe (and generally) and why we are so disturbed by that. In France, women are not even allowed to wear burquas on the streets anymore.
I do know this is a very sensitive topic and I don't mean to judge these women or to give a reason why they cover their heads. What I find important is our side, our reaction and "our" in this case means us, the Western people who are "disturbed" by burquas (a French politician said that on TV in that documentary, that he found is "disturbing" to see women dressed like that). Why do we find it disturbing though? Because it is different? Because we don't like to see religeous people in the streets? Consider how many Christians wear a cross that expresses their religion and how many Christans have the Ichtys-fish smbol on the back of their car! Is that less disturbing? Or the promise-ring which some American girls wear promise rings to show that they won't have sex before they're married!
Admittedly, I understand one argument of the discussion: a large number of women might be forced to wear headscarfs or burquas. There might be pressure from their families and relatives. A burqua-ban like it exists in France won't really change that, though. And it won't change the women's situations. Ultimately, what should be more important is making sure these women and girls can chose to get an education, to go to college or to university if they want to and to do any job they want to do. A burqua or headscarf won't help them with that, but banning it won't give women these choices.
And let us not forget that many women might choose to cover their heads. One young woman was interviewed and she explained that she had discoverted the headscarf for herself even though her family would never have asked her to wear it. She might not be the only one. And yet, I think our Western society sees it as something that is out of date, something that should not be anymore, not in these days. Women should be free to wear what they want to wear and to decide for themselves how much of their bodies they want to reveal. And revealing one's body isn't a problem for women in Western societies. I see them on the tram and the bus: women wearing hotpants and flimsy tops and a few years ago they would even reveal their stomachs and the only reson they're not doing that is that it's not in anymore. But what if a woman decides to cover her body rather than reveal it? I did that for a few years. I hated my body when I was in the depth of Anorexia Nervosa. I thought my legs were too fat so I never wore skirts or short trousers, let alone bathing suits or bikinis. I had cut my arms so much I couldn't let people see them so I wore long sleeves as well. I bought XL-clothes to hide my "huge" figure (a figure that did fit easily into size XS) and believe me, if I had had the courage and the possibility, I would have worn a burqua to hide my body. Admittedly, I was covering myself because I was sick. But it was hardly acceptable. People kept asking why I never wore short sleeves or skirts. They thought it was weird.
We see half-naked women all the time: on big posters, advertising tiny bikinis on flawless, photoshopped bodies, on TV and in magazines. We are taught that we have to look like that: skinny with tanned, smooth skin and perfect proportions and no body hair whatsoever. Sometimes I catch myself trying to make my body look so perfect I could take off my clothes any time and would look brilliant - not that I've ever planned to actually do that, but I feel like I need to be perfect enough to be able to do that and to look like a supermodel.
There is an enormous pressure on Western women these days. We have to pursue the greatest career and have important jobs, we are supposed to be perfect mothers and housewives and great sex partners and we are also supposed to exercise and to diet and to look fabulous all the time. Girls as young as eight are starving themselves to live up to that fantasy picture of a perfect woman, teenagers diet regularly and mothers of beautiful children with wonderful husbands are unable to enjoy their happiness because they continuously feel the need to lose more and more weight.
Maybe burquas and headscarves look more out of date. However, if covering your head is pathetic, the desperate attempt to live up to a fantasy image created by the media is just as pathetic as well. Western societies look down on women covering their heads and ban the burquas while their own women starve themselves or purge their food or overeat in their despair. Are we not horribly hypocritical? Talk about the suppression of women - the West can do that just as well as the East. So the ban of the burqua in france is about giving the women more freedom, one should ban posters of half-naked women as well - they are the other extreme and their effect is at least as negative.
If the ban of the burqua is more about Western people feeling disturbed by it, can we please ban a few other things as well? Things like t-shirts the size S on women who are a size L or horrible hairstyles done by cheap hairdressers, the tons and tons of make-up on some young girls' faces, t-shirts that have words like "slut" or "bitch" written over the front ans men in thin, pink t-shirts! If everyone is allowed to wear whatever they want to wear, the burqua and headscarves should be included. believe me, there are things which are a hundred times as tasteless as a long, black coat that hides the face.
It is a difficult topic and I don't claim to have a solution for it or the ultimate truth about it - I don't. I just wish we could drop some of the hypocrisy that seems to mask the lack of tolerance and I wish we could develop more tolerance instead and embrace different cultures instead of insisting on our own culture being the best. It is not - otherwise there wouldn't be that many people with eating disorders, addictions and hundreds of other psychiatric problems.
Tuesday, 30 August 2011
Wednesday, 24 August 2011
Guinea-pigs
It rarely happens that I write two posts within one day, but I'm by myself tonight and I just feel like writing. So I've decided to write about our guinea-pigs. There is a longer story to it.
In January 2009, I got a hamster that was already one year old at the time. I named her Lucy and Lucy died of old age in summer 2010. Two and a half years is a pretty good age for a hamster. However, after her death the flat seemed empty to my boyfriend and me and we decided to get pets again - rodents since dogs are often not allowed in flats and we wouldn't have enough time for one right now since they do need to be taken for walks frequently. A cat was out of question. In autumn, someone from our swordfencing group told us about someone else who had to get rid of their nine month-old gerbils. They were ready to give them away with a huge cage, for free. That's how we ended up with our gerbils Monty and Reepicheep.
Around Christmas we decided that we wanted guinea-pigs as well and in January I found a breeder over the internet who wanted to give his baby guinea-pigs away. He assured us that all three of them were boys so we believed him and took them home where my boyfriend had built a cage for them. We named them Patch, Sparky and Basil. They were five weeks old when we got them. Soon we noticed that Basil and Sparky were fighting over Patch so we had to separate Basil from the other two since he was the most aggressive of them. For weeks, we were all living in peace. One day in march we weighed the guinea-pigs - something we do every week. Patch had gained a surprisingly large amount of weight and two days later my boyfriend joked that she might be pregnant. As the anxious person I often am, I researched pregnant guinea-pigs on the internet and saw photos of pregnant sows which look too much like our Patch. That's when we realised that Patch was actually a girl - and pregnant.
That day my boyfriend and I were sitting on our settee, watching our little aubergine-shaped guinea-pig, both of us groaning: "I want a drink!" and wondering about how many babies she might be carrying inside her belly. The following weeks were tense. I did more research on the internet and began to worry about all kinds of things - that the babies might be disfigured since Patch and Sparky are siblings, that Patch might be too young for a pregnancy, that we would wake up one morning to find a bloody mess of dead little guinea-pigs in the cage. Often I would tell my boyfriend about things I read and that I was worried about. He got a little annoyed at some point. I really did worry too much. During that time we had Sparky neutered even though we were not entirely sure if it was him or Basil who had impregnated Patch. Basil was neutered a few weeks later.
Patch was growing bigger and bigger. We could even see the babies moving inside her which was amazing. On April 14th, which is my mother's birthday, I woke up at around seven in the morning and walked into our sitting room. Patch was sitting in her cage, looking at me with her innocent eyes. She was slim, very slim compared to what she had looked like the night before! I stormed back into the bedroom and woke up my boyfriend who lifted the wooden little house he had made for them. And there they were: two completely white, tiny guinea-pigs and a completely dark one sitting between them, huddled up together, their fur still looking slightly damp. There was just a little bit of blood on a cloth, but althogether, things were looking very clean.
Two days later, we weighed the babies for the first time. We never took them out without Patch so they would not get too scared. Each was less than 100 g. The little dark one had two white spots on her nose and so we named it Spotty. The other two were completely white so it was clear that Sparky was their father. He is also completely white. They were so adorable, so tiny, but already fully developed with fur and their eyes open. On the second day, they began to carefully step out for a few moments and on the third day, we could observe them while they were exploring the cage and beginning to eat tiny bits of hay. It was a miracle.
We had decided to give them away once they would be old enough and when they were about three weeks old we put an ad on the internet, but nobody replied to say they wanted to take them. We had to separate them from their mother at the time since she was getting too thin from nursing them and we were growing more and more attached to them. The dark one we named Spotty, the white female we named cotton since her fur is slightly longer and the little white male is Mr. You. By June we knew we would keep them and in the first week of July, we had Mr. You neutered as well to disable the potential guinea-pig factory.
The babies are about four months old now. They have grown quite a bit and we laugh a lot about them. They are very tame, very cheeky and absolutely adorable - as are the adults, by the way. I don't think we could ever give them away. Watching them grow and develop is amazing and we have become very attached to them. There was a time, when Patch was still pregnant with them, when I feared things might spiral out of control, that we would have more and more baby guinea-pigs and that we would get completley overwhelmed with them. However, things are fine. The babies are growing and they make our life a little happier every day. Having pets is a wonderful thing. We laugh more, we have happy moments with them and life is a little more interesting with our zoo!
In January 2009, I got a hamster that was already one year old at the time. I named her Lucy and Lucy died of old age in summer 2010. Two and a half years is a pretty good age for a hamster. However, after her death the flat seemed empty to my boyfriend and me and we decided to get pets again - rodents since dogs are often not allowed in flats and we wouldn't have enough time for one right now since they do need to be taken for walks frequently. A cat was out of question. In autumn, someone from our swordfencing group told us about someone else who had to get rid of their nine month-old gerbils. They were ready to give them away with a huge cage, for free. That's how we ended up with our gerbils Monty and Reepicheep.
Around Christmas we decided that we wanted guinea-pigs as well and in January I found a breeder over the internet who wanted to give his baby guinea-pigs away. He assured us that all three of them were boys so we believed him and took them home where my boyfriend had built a cage for them. We named them Patch, Sparky and Basil. They were five weeks old when we got them. Soon we noticed that Basil and Sparky were fighting over Patch so we had to separate Basil from the other two since he was the most aggressive of them. For weeks, we were all living in peace. One day in march we weighed the guinea-pigs - something we do every week. Patch had gained a surprisingly large amount of weight and two days later my boyfriend joked that she might be pregnant. As the anxious person I often am, I researched pregnant guinea-pigs on the internet and saw photos of pregnant sows which look too much like our Patch. That's when we realised that Patch was actually a girl - and pregnant.
That day my boyfriend and I were sitting on our settee, watching our little aubergine-shaped guinea-pig, both of us groaning: "I want a drink!" and wondering about how many babies she might be carrying inside her belly. The following weeks were tense. I did more research on the internet and began to worry about all kinds of things - that the babies might be disfigured since Patch and Sparky are siblings, that Patch might be too young for a pregnancy, that we would wake up one morning to find a bloody mess of dead little guinea-pigs in the cage. Often I would tell my boyfriend about things I read and that I was worried about. He got a little annoyed at some point. I really did worry too much. During that time we had Sparky neutered even though we were not entirely sure if it was him or Basil who had impregnated Patch. Basil was neutered a few weeks later.
Patch was growing bigger and bigger. We could even see the babies moving inside her which was amazing. On April 14th, which is my mother's birthday, I woke up at around seven in the morning and walked into our sitting room. Patch was sitting in her cage, looking at me with her innocent eyes. She was slim, very slim compared to what she had looked like the night before! I stormed back into the bedroom and woke up my boyfriend who lifted the wooden little house he had made for them. And there they were: two completely white, tiny guinea-pigs and a completely dark one sitting between them, huddled up together, their fur still looking slightly damp. There was just a little bit of blood on a cloth, but althogether, things were looking very clean.
Two days later, we weighed the babies for the first time. We never took them out without Patch so they would not get too scared. Each was less than 100 g. The little dark one had two white spots on her nose and so we named it Spotty. The other two were completely white so it was clear that Sparky was their father. He is also completely white. They were so adorable, so tiny, but already fully developed with fur and their eyes open. On the second day, they began to carefully step out for a few moments and on the third day, we could observe them while they were exploring the cage and beginning to eat tiny bits of hay. It was a miracle.
We had decided to give them away once they would be old enough and when they were about three weeks old we put an ad on the internet, but nobody replied to say they wanted to take them. We had to separate them from their mother at the time since she was getting too thin from nursing them and we were growing more and more attached to them. The dark one we named Spotty, the white female we named cotton since her fur is slightly longer and the little white male is Mr. You. By June we knew we would keep them and in the first week of July, we had Mr. You neutered as well to disable the potential guinea-pig factory.
The babies are about four months old now. They have grown quite a bit and we laugh a lot about them. They are very tame, very cheeky and absolutely adorable - as are the adults, by the way. I don't think we could ever give them away. Watching them grow and develop is amazing and we have become very attached to them. There was a time, when Patch was still pregnant with them, when I feared things might spiral out of control, that we would have more and more baby guinea-pigs and that we would get completley overwhelmed with them. However, things are fine. The babies are growing and they make our life a little happier every day. Having pets is a wonderful thing. We laugh more, we have happy moments with them and life is a little more interesting with our zoo!
What can be annoying
The idea from this post is actually not mine. I took it from someone else's blog because I felt compelled to write something on that topic myself.
Imagine you see a very overweight woman in the street or on the bus. Imagine she might even be eating a sandwich - or a hamburger. Would you comment on that? Admittedly, some people might have mean thoughts along the lines of "Why is that fat person not eating vegetables?" or "How can someone that obese eat a hamburger now?!". Hardly anyone would say that out loud, though. It would be extremely offensive and hurtful and rude. You just don't do that, you don't comment on someone's weight. It is too easy to be rude or offensive, especially with women. I think the only situations in which it is okay is with babies (I'm sure every healthy mother likes hearing from other people that her baby has grown bigger since that's what babies are supposed to do) or with someone who really is working on losing the weight - who might be happy to hear that someone else can see their progress.
In any other case, however, just don't do it! I myself have had comments in the other direction. I have a delicate, girlish figure, but I have a healthy weight and a healhty BMI - I'm just at the bottom end of healthy. My boss in a facility where I tutor kids after school commented several times. One day I came in and she asked whether I was losing "even more weight" when in fact I have maintained my weight for years. Another time I mentioned that I'm learning medieval swordfencing with real swords and she asked: "What, with your weight?!". The problem is that her comments sounded so negative, like she was basically telling me I'm too thin. You can make many comments on a woman's look which are not offensive. "Wow, you look pretty today!" might be one or "I like your hairstyle!", but stating reproachfully that you're too thin to hold a sword is not nice and makes me feel like a freak. I'm built this way. I eat normally and I like eating and I even have sweeties every now and then, but I'm just naturally this way, the way other women might be naturally heavier. The best thing is to just allow people to be the way they are and not to make comments which suggeest that something might be wrong with them. That counts for thin people as well. A thin person does not like it if people make comments on their weight, espcially when those comments imply that something must be wrong with a person because they are thin.
On a different note: I've been having headaches for the past two days because of the weird, sticky-hot weather. I don't do well with that. We've been having thunderstorms as well and there will be more thunderstorms on the weekend - which I'm fine with as long as our cellar doesn't get flooded again the way it happened a few weeks ago. We spent a whole day tidying up and drying the cellar room and I was so extremely achy the next day!
Imagine you see a very overweight woman in the street or on the bus. Imagine she might even be eating a sandwich - or a hamburger. Would you comment on that? Admittedly, some people might have mean thoughts along the lines of "Why is that fat person not eating vegetables?" or "How can someone that obese eat a hamburger now?!". Hardly anyone would say that out loud, though. It would be extremely offensive and hurtful and rude. You just don't do that, you don't comment on someone's weight. It is too easy to be rude or offensive, especially with women. I think the only situations in which it is okay is with babies (I'm sure every healthy mother likes hearing from other people that her baby has grown bigger since that's what babies are supposed to do) or with someone who really is working on losing the weight - who might be happy to hear that someone else can see their progress.
In any other case, however, just don't do it! I myself have had comments in the other direction. I have a delicate, girlish figure, but I have a healthy weight and a healhty BMI - I'm just at the bottom end of healthy. My boss in a facility where I tutor kids after school commented several times. One day I came in and she asked whether I was losing "even more weight" when in fact I have maintained my weight for years. Another time I mentioned that I'm learning medieval swordfencing with real swords and she asked: "What, with your weight?!". The problem is that her comments sounded so negative, like she was basically telling me I'm too thin. You can make many comments on a woman's look which are not offensive. "Wow, you look pretty today!" might be one or "I like your hairstyle!", but stating reproachfully that you're too thin to hold a sword is not nice and makes me feel like a freak. I'm built this way. I eat normally and I like eating and I even have sweeties every now and then, but I'm just naturally this way, the way other women might be naturally heavier. The best thing is to just allow people to be the way they are and not to make comments which suggeest that something might be wrong with them. That counts for thin people as well. A thin person does not like it if people make comments on their weight, espcially when those comments imply that something must be wrong with a person because they are thin.
On a different note: I've been having headaches for the past two days because of the weird, sticky-hot weather. I don't do well with that. We've been having thunderstorms as well and there will be more thunderstorms on the weekend - which I'm fine with as long as our cellar doesn't get flooded again the way it happened a few weeks ago. We spent a whole day tidying up and drying the cellar room and I was so extremely achy the next day!
Monday, 22 August 2011
Warmth
Today, it is finally sunny and warm again. The weather began to get better on Saturday when we were invited to a friend's birthday party. We rode our bikes there. Last night, we were invited to a barbecue and cycled there. We had just finished eating when it began to rain and we had to cycle hom ethrough the thunderstorm. We could probably have waited until it's over, but we didn't know how long we would have to wait, so we decided to get home as fast as possible.
I have been going through many different emotions during the past weeks, mostly anxiety though. Since yesterday, I have managed to calm down a little and I'm generally feeling better. Anxiety is something I struggle with a lot. Often it is social anxiety, but that is manageable and allows me to do all the important things I have to do. The bigger problem is my anxiety about the future. I keep imagining the worst that could happen to us - even though generally, I'm not really such a negative person. However, I do tend to think way too much about things and I tend to worry a lot as well, resulting in panic attacks, often several during the days. Nobody sees them since I have learned to control them. Mostly, what happens is that my blood pressure and heartbeat speed up, I start feeling hot in a feverish way, my legs begin to feel wobbly, my head starts to spin, my stomch churns and I can't breathe deeply. Today, it hasn't happened once, though. I do have good days. And I try to learn to let go, to relax and to remind myself that I cannot change the future by worrying about things. Sometimes it seems like I'm making progress, but sometimes it also seems like I will never learn to relax more.
However, during the past days it has been better and I've been a lot more relaxed. The sunshine helps. I was almost expecting autumn to come and it is beautiful to have a few more sunny days. Now I'm even hoping we might be able to swim in a the lake again before it really gets cold. Today we used the weather and did the laundry so it could dry outside. Things smell wonderful when they have been drying outside! Generally, I try to soak up as much sun as possible. Being outside and close to nature has always been quite important to me which is why I love living close to the lake. Now it looks like we might have some more beautiful, carefree days before it really begins to get cold.
I have been going through many different emotions during the past weeks, mostly anxiety though. Since yesterday, I have managed to calm down a little and I'm generally feeling better. Anxiety is something I struggle with a lot. Often it is social anxiety, but that is manageable and allows me to do all the important things I have to do. The bigger problem is my anxiety about the future. I keep imagining the worst that could happen to us - even though generally, I'm not really such a negative person. However, I do tend to think way too much about things and I tend to worry a lot as well, resulting in panic attacks, often several during the days. Nobody sees them since I have learned to control them. Mostly, what happens is that my blood pressure and heartbeat speed up, I start feeling hot in a feverish way, my legs begin to feel wobbly, my head starts to spin, my stomch churns and I can't breathe deeply. Today, it hasn't happened once, though. I do have good days. And I try to learn to let go, to relax and to remind myself that I cannot change the future by worrying about things. Sometimes it seems like I'm making progress, but sometimes it also seems like I will never learn to relax more.
However, during the past days it has been better and I've been a lot more relaxed. The sunshine helps. I was almost expecting autumn to come and it is beautiful to have a few more sunny days. Now I'm even hoping we might be able to swim in a the lake again before it really gets cold. Today we used the weather and did the laundry so it could dry outside. Things smell wonderful when they have been drying outside! Generally, I try to soak up as much sun as possible. Being outside and close to nature has always been quite important to me which is why I love living close to the lake. Now it looks like we might have some more beautiful, carefree days before it really begins to get cold.
Sunday, 14 August 2011
Rain, rain, rain
For about a week or more it has been raining almost constantly and it has been quite cool. It's the middle of August, but it somehow feels like autumn has begun. We had some real summer in May or June which was the only time we were able to go to the lake and lie in the sun and swim a few times. After that, it has been cool and cloudy and often very rainy. Sometimes there would be two or three warm days in a row, but never enough for the water to get warm enough for swimming again. We definitely didn't have a proper summer this year. All we did have was cool weather and rain. Sometimes it was so cool we were close to switching the heating on and one time we actually did because our pets were getting too cold.
I'm kind of hoping we will get a nice, warm September, but part of me fears we might have autumn already and it will only get worse. I don't even buy summer clothes anymore because for this year, I certainly have enough summer clothes and don't even know if I will get an apportunity to wear them.
Winter has been quite cold during the past two years and we got a lot of snow. This city is usually quite English when it comes to the climate which means that the people here don't cope well with snow - and neither do trams or busses. Last winter, I once waited about 30 minutes for a bus. Generally, I do like winter because I like Christmas. Life takes place inside, mostly, in comfortable flats and sitting rooms where we can cuddle up and be close. This year, I am already thinking about Christmas presents, determined to avoid the stress right before Christmas because I'm hoping to have the Christmas shopping finished by the end of November. I also prefer wearing long sleeves and jumpers to wearing t-shirts and tops in summer, probably because of the scars on my arms. In summer I have the coice of either wearing long sleeves or being stared at. In winter, I don't have that problem at all.
What I love most, however, is the transition from one season to the next. I love autumn when the leaves on the trees are red, orange, yellow and brown and when they begin to fall. I love sunny autumn days and sometimes I even like rainy days and getting more comfortable inside, getting the warm coats out and the comfortable jumpers. I love winter, the first snow, the first really cold days, because it means that Christmas is close and the end of the year which is a time when it feels like the world is becoming a little more quiet. I love spring, the excitement of sunshine and putting warm clothes away, the awakening, being outside without a jacket for the first time and the happy mood everybody is in on sunny days. And in some way, I even like hot days in summer and the relief a thunderstorm brings. I'm fascinated by the seasons, by how much they influence our lives and by how they make us feel. It is something simple which still brings so much joy and so much beauty.
Right now, I'm in the mood for autumn. That does not mean I wouldn't love a warm September, but part of me is preparing for autumn, for rain, colder weather, wind and falling leaves. We often get very stormy weather in autumn and at night, I sometimes wake up, hear the wind howling around the house, hear the rain against the window and things falling over in the yard and then I pull the duvet tighter around me, hear the pets or my bf breathing and fall back alseep, grateful for our safe, warm place.
And today it is the rain which has inspired me to write this. The rain and the feeling of happiness and being grateful for what we have - which is a lot compared to many people on this planet.
I'm kind of hoping we will get a nice, warm September, but part of me fears we might have autumn already and it will only get worse. I don't even buy summer clothes anymore because for this year, I certainly have enough summer clothes and don't even know if I will get an apportunity to wear them.
Winter has been quite cold during the past two years and we got a lot of snow. This city is usually quite English when it comes to the climate which means that the people here don't cope well with snow - and neither do trams or busses. Last winter, I once waited about 30 minutes for a bus. Generally, I do like winter because I like Christmas. Life takes place inside, mostly, in comfortable flats and sitting rooms where we can cuddle up and be close. This year, I am already thinking about Christmas presents, determined to avoid the stress right before Christmas because I'm hoping to have the Christmas shopping finished by the end of November. I also prefer wearing long sleeves and jumpers to wearing t-shirts and tops in summer, probably because of the scars on my arms. In summer I have the coice of either wearing long sleeves or being stared at. In winter, I don't have that problem at all.
What I love most, however, is the transition from one season to the next. I love autumn when the leaves on the trees are red, orange, yellow and brown and when they begin to fall. I love sunny autumn days and sometimes I even like rainy days and getting more comfortable inside, getting the warm coats out and the comfortable jumpers. I love winter, the first snow, the first really cold days, because it means that Christmas is close and the end of the year which is a time when it feels like the world is becoming a little more quiet. I love spring, the excitement of sunshine and putting warm clothes away, the awakening, being outside without a jacket for the first time and the happy mood everybody is in on sunny days. And in some way, I even like hot days in summer and the relief a thunderstorm brings. I'm fascinated by the seasons, by how much they influence our lives and by how they make us feel. It is something simple which still brings so much joy and so much beauty.
Right now, I'm in the mood for autumn. That does not mean I wouldn't love a warm September, but part of me is preparing for autumn, for rain, colder weather, wind and falling leaves. We often get very stormy weather in autumn and at night, I sometimes wake up, hear the wind howling around the house, hear the rain against the window and things falling over in the yard and then I pull the duvet tighter around me, hear the pets or my bf breathing and fall back alseep, grateful for our safe, warm place.
And today it is the rain which has inspired me to write this. The rain and the feeling of happiness and being grateful for what we have - which is a lot compared to many people on this planet.
Saturday, 13 August 2011
First post
Since I've been a young girl (about eleven or twelve), I've been writing regularly. Writing is an essential part of me and always has been. Writing is how I work through things, how I express things and how I talk about things. I'm not sure if I could live without writing. There have been times when I have been reading little and writing a lot.
So I have now decided to start a blog. Everybod does it, so why shouldn't I. Aside from that, sometimes I feel like I have things worht telling. Other times, I might just be rambling. So who am I: I like to stay relatively anonymous because I don't want my real life and the internet to be to close together and I don't really want people from where I live to know what I write here. So all you will know about me in terms of facts is that I'm Jayna and I live in a city, close to a lake with my boyfriend and a few pets. I'm 26 and my boyfriend and I are quite poor, but we have an amazing flat which everybody loves and I think we have a good life.
In the past, I have been through a lot. As a child, I grew up in a very fundamentalist Baptist church and we left when I was 15 because I was in deep trouble. I had tried and tried to be the perfect Christian, fearing God's punishment and hell. I was always anxious about that as a child which might be the reason I still struggle with anxietxy. I worry about the future a lot. And since I didn't really allow myself to be a teenager and to find out who I was, I had to do that in my early twenties. I also used to be anorexic for more than a decade and I used to cut myself. My arms are covered in layers of scars which look awful even though they are pale now. I also have hyperthyroidism and now struggle with hypothyroidism and I have ostearthritis in my knees which means that very often, I'm in pain - sometimes so much I can hardly turn round in bed.
One day I decided I wanted to be healthy and to have a life. While studying, I got a job in a bar and got to know my boyfriend. It's been a long, painful journey - so much I had to learn, so many things I had to leave behind to be healthy. I still struggle with anxiety and still haven't finished studying, but I have not given up. That may be the most important thing in my life. I still believe I can have a good life - I am having a good life right now, despite anxiety, despite being poor, despite struggling to stay healthy and to cope with things in a healthy way. I'm making progress every day and I have become so much stronger.
Aside from the sad part of my story, I have my very own character traits. I am quite impatient and have trouble waiting for things. I try to do everything at once. I'm hyperactive. I always jump up to do things and I often run into thing. When I work in the bar, I get bruises on my thighs and hips because I run into things. Recently, I had a bike accident and bruised my ribs badly - I was too fast, too impatient. I am very creative and I used to dance a lot. I never had lessons, but just copied things I saw on TV or in books or made up my own dances. Dancing used to be and still is a big part of me. However, my knees are in no condition for dancing. Sometimes I still do it since I can't help it, but actually, I shouldn't. I love music and used to sing a lot and I love pictures and music videos and even made two music videos as a teenager with scenes from the TV series "Stargate SG1". I often talk too fast and while I am very shy when I meet strangers or people I don't know well, I can get very lively and talk a lot if I'm in a discussion on a topic which is important to me - of which there are many since I'm an extremely curious person and love reading about things, watching documentaries and learning new things. This year, my goal is to read two books every month and so far that has been going well. My boyfriend is an artist so we're both a littel "different", but looking from outside, we have quite a boring, quiet life.
So what will I write about in a blog? I don't know yet. Maybe everything, maybe nothing. I leanr things in my life, new experiences and sometimes I feel like sharing them. One of my favourite authors is Adrian Plass and my mother once told me about a book by him in which someone said to someone else that there is no wasted time, no years that went wasted. i used to think I wasted part of my life when, in my early twenties, I still had to find out who I am and go through things teenagers usually go through and I know now that this time was not wasted. It might not have been used to accomplish something big on the outside, but I learned so many things. There is no wasted time. We live in a world which has become so complicated, focused on capitalism and materialism. if you don't want to focus on that, I think you generally don't have an easy life. And if you do want to focus on that, you don't have an easy life, either since you have to keep up which is often a struggle as well. I had to learn that success, a career or money is not nearly as important as it often seems to be. Success and money don't buy you happiness and you can be happy with little. We always want everything and we think we have a right to have everything, but we don't. These days, I am grateful for a clean, warm place to live in, for enough food and clothes, for our pets and for the little extras we manage to afford every now and then. Once you start being happy about little, you generally get happier.
So I guess this is part of my journey, my learning and in some way, still, my recovery.
So I have now decided to start a blog. Everybod does it, so why shouldn't I. Aside from that, sometimes I feel like I have things worht telling. Other times, I might just be rambling. So who am I: I like to stay relatively anonymous because I don't want my real life and the internet to be to close together and I don't really want people from where I live to know what I write here. So all you will know about me in terms of facts is that I'm Jayna and I live in a city, close to a lake with my boyfriend and a few pets. I'm 26 and my boyfriend and I are quite poor, but we have an amazing flat which everybody loves and I think we have a good life.
In the past, I have been through a lot. As a child, I grew up in a very fundamentalist Baptist church and we left when I was 15 because I was in deep trouble. I had tried and tried to be the perfect Christian, fearing God's punishment and hell. I was always anxious about that as a child which might be the reason I still struggle with anxietxy. I worry about the future a lot. And since I didn't really allow myself to be a teenager and to find out who I was, I had to do that in my early twenties. I also used to be anorexic for more than a decade and I used to cut myself. My arms are covered in layers of scars which look awful even though they are pale now. I also have hyperthyroidism and now struggle with hypothyroidism and I have ostearthritis in my knees which means that very often, I'm in pain - sometimes so much I can hardly turn round in bed.
One day I decided I wanted to be healthy and to have a life. While studying, I got a job in a bar and got to know my boyfriend. It's been a long, painful journey - so much I had to learn, so many things I had to leave behind to be healthy. I still struggle with anxiety and still haven't finished studying, but I have not given up. That may be the most important thing in my life. I still believe I can have a good life - I am having a good life right now, despite anxiety, despite being poor, despite struggling to stay healthy and to cope with things in a healthy way. I'm making progress every day and I have become so much stronger.
Aside from the sad part of my story, I have my very own character traits. I am quite impatient and have trouble waiting for things. I try to do everything at once. I'm hyperactive. I always jump up to do things and I often run into thing. When I work in the bar, I get bruises on my thighs and hips because I run into things. Recently, I had a bike accident and bruised my ribs badly - I was too fast, too impatient. I am very creative and I used to dance a lot. I never had lessons, but just copied things I saw on TV or in books or made up my own dances. Dancing used to be and still is a big part of me. However, my knees are in no condition for dancing. Sometimes I still do it since I can't help it, but actually, I shouldn't. I love music and used to sing a lot and I love pictures and music videos and even made two music videos as a teenager with scenes from the TV series "Stargate SG1". I often talk too fast and while I am very shy when I meet strangers or people I don't know well, I can get very lively and talk a lot if I'm in a discussion on a topic which is important to me - of which there are many since I'm an extremely curious person and love reading about things, watching documentaries and learning new things. This year, my goal is to read two books every month and so far that has been going well. My boyfriend is an artist so we're both a littel "different", but looking from outside, we have quite a boring, quiet life.
So what will I write about in a blog? I don't know yet. Maybe everything, maybe nothing. I leanr things in my life, new experiences and sometimes I feel like sharing them. One of my favourite authors is Adrian Plass and my mother once told me about a book by him in which someone said to someone else that there is no wasted time, no years that went wasted. i used to think I wasted part of my life when, in my early twenties, I still had to find out who I am and go through things teenagers usually go through and I know now that this time was not wasted. It might not have been used to accomplish something big on the outside, but I learned so many things. There is no wasted time. We live in a world which has become so complicated, focused on capitalism and materialism. if you don't want to focus on that, I think you generally don't have an easy life. And if you do want to focus on that, you don't have an easy life, either since you have to keep up which is often a struggle as well. I had to learn that success, a career or money is not nearly as important as it often seems to be. Success and money don't buy you happiness and you can be happy with little. We always want everything and we think we have a right to have everything, but we don't. These days, I am grateful for a clean, warm place to live in, for enough food and clothes, for our pets and for the little extras we manage to afford every now and then. Once you start being happy about little, you generally get happier.
So I guess this is part of my journey, my learning and in some way, still, my recovery.
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