Month: October 2017

Multiculturalism of Australia and White Nationalist

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At Costco in the line to return something that happened to be the wrong size, I was marvelling at all of the different heritage around me. There were so many shades of skin colour and accents it was truly a moment capturing the beautiful multiculturalism in Australia. It was totally awkward, but I couldn’t help but compliment the woman who had been partially helping the woman who was helping me as her skin colour was this incredibly rich shade very different from my pale freckled skin, and she had such a great complexion too. Anyway, I smiled to myself during the whole encounter because it really made me feel that Australia is a country that has so many immigrants and in places where we all converge all just flows.

As it usually goes in just about every shopping experience, there’s a signal to everyone that it’s now time for every single shopper to make their way to the counters to pay. This happens everywhere, we as humans must all feel the urgency of timing all at once and all in unison turn around and make a b line for the closest checkout. I was in one of the lines and moved back so other people could pass in front of me to get to the other side. In this, some people got a little confused about where the line started, but I hadn’t thought it was going to be a problem because there were clearly people already waiting behind me, specifically this woman and her baby who my son and I had talked about during our shopping trip. We heard the baby talking and talking, and then by checkout time, bub was not happy and needed to be held. My toddler noted all of this as we’ve been talking about feelings a lot lately so he narrated the scene when we saw them. Apparently an older woman didn’t realise the line was much longer and put her cart behind mine, and I politely told her that I thought the woman with the baby was next in line, and the line was curving a bit making a hand motion in the direction of the curve. I could tell that English wasn’t her first language, but she understood, and moved her cart to the end of the line. All was fine, just helping create some order. Then all of a sudden I hear the two guys who are with the woman and baby, say “Yeah, we need to take care of our own” and I made eye contact with him, and at first the thought was just that I have  child and I assumed that was probably his child. The mother now holding the baby didn’t say a word, and I loaded up my items on the conveyor belt and the comment swirled around in my head. Why I can’t just let things roll over me and be done with it, I’m not sure… but I thought about it and I was the only other fair skinned person with my son in our line besides them. I hadn’t even considered that the remark would have been racial in nature. So I purposely talked in my very American accent to the checkout helpers and talked about the wagon I had in my trolley and how it was going to be great this summer, especially with the extra drink holders. As I left, I distinctly noticed a big Southern Cross tattoo on the man’s neck who made the remark. And I quickly pieced together an episode of Triple J’s Hack where the Southern Cross had been coopted and now was representing something more like white nationalist pride, or something of the like. My stomach turned.

I enjoy the richness that comes with multiculturalism. I enjoy the opportunity to learn and grow with the people around me. I know I am an immigrant, and I cannot help but feel the same amount of slightedness that might be aimed at people who are more obviously not from here based on their accents, or their skin colour, or the way they dress. I am one of them, I am one of the Australians too. We are all one.

Maybe I misconstrued what that comment meant and probably I am overthinking and overanalysing it, but maybe not.

Finally I Saw Therapist

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Finally I got some face to face help. Two sessions today after calling around yesterday to see if I could talk to someone. I felt the dark wave of grief and despair rolling over me yesterday. I know this feeling. I know it very well since having my child. It was a very traumatic experience for me and I haven’t felt confident to seek a qualified professional as I didn’t have Permanent Residency and didn’t want to jeopardise my chances of getting to stay with my family here in Australia. Now I do have PR and I am working through this now.

The first session was a woo woo style practitioner. She let me ramble and ramble, and that’s what I did. I cried a bit, told my story, described how I felt in creative ways, and at the end did some sand play where I just created what was circling in me and brought it to the surface. That was fun, I always enjoy these kinds of ways of bringing out creativity and to help gain insight. I described what I thought about each piece I chose to add from her shelves of figurines. I chose a mini pot of flowers to add beauty and symbolise the circular path that life seems to be. I chose a native woman carrying a child on her back and a golly wog doll which is an inherently racist black doll that is very kitsch Australian, and I chose these because I feel empathy for them, and in my own plight I understand theirs better. I chose Merlin with a unicorn to help represent how magic is all around, I just have to ask and see it. I chose a happy smiling buddha because I want more of that in my life, but am not sure how to fully detach to get to that stage these days. In the middle I drew out two big eyes, like that Grateful Dead song that goes “wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world” as it’s been running through my head for days now. All in all, it was a good session and I appreciated having that kind of very soft space to talk about things.

The second session was just a few doors down, also upstairs in this downtown charming historic town. When I walked into the stairwell it smelt like beauty parlour that specialises in waxing, and it took me by surprise. I guess that smell went with how I felt when I was in the session, very similar to when you are going in for a wax, you know you need to do it, you know you’ll love the results, but for christ sakes the process is painful, but some areas are strangely very satisfying and almost enjoyable in their pain. The psychologist was an older woman who I can only guess has hair that reaches all the way down her back, she had it piled up high on her head into a bun, she’s of retirement age, but so youthful and full of energy as soon as she opened her mouth with a bright sparkle in her eyes. She wore older woman nice clothes, you know the kind that were popular ages ago and they’re still in fine knick but not necessarily up to date. She also wore a beautiful broach that coordinated with her maroon pantsuit which gave me a sense of comfort thinking about how my grandmother used to wear broaches.

We got down to business after I sat in her narrow office. I had already filled out the paperwork, which thankfully my husband’s work pays for these sessions so we don’t have to pay out the $175 per visit as the contract had read. I get five sessions with her under his program and I will use them all. She asked me to give her a summary of why I am there and what I’ve been up to. So I backtracked to 2010 and mentioned that after a head on collision that happened just months after arriving in Australia, that I received counselling which was very helpful. I mentioned that due to a Medical Treatment visa I was able to stay here, and that’s in the timeframe that I met my husband. I mentioned about going back to University and finishing my bachelors. I mentioned that although my husband and I both had chosen in our earlier lives to not have children, that together we changed our direction and intentionally created our son who was conceived on our wedding day out of love, and that he is all love. I then talked about how that pregnancy went haywire, and I ended up in hospital for nearly three weeks until an emergency caesar where he was extracted from my body, and put into the NICU in a  plexiglass box and that a couple days later I was able to see him and all of it was very disorienting. I told her that before I was put under with the gas that I made peace with my life because I thought I was going to die, and how I had just left my husband’s hand in this stark white corridor on the way to the surgery area. I talked about how I had been so straight during my pregnancy with everything I was consuming and then all of a sudden I was taking major drugs to help me cope with the pain, and how that along with having to inject myself with a needle to help prevent dissolve the blood clot that had formed in my groin, was the worst kind of self harm I’ve ever known physically, and all of it took me so far from my natural clear headed state. I talked about the uncertainty when bringing home our child, and being all alone in Sydney with my husband working shifts of four days on and four days off, and not having any additional help and those first months were the darkest of my entire life. I shared how when I think of the newborn phase I think of the smell of Aquim hand sanitiser, chords, beeping, uncertainty, pain, hurt, and grief. I shared with her out loud things that I have never shared with anyone else that went on in my mind during that stage and I wept so loudly and it all came out. I completely lost it, and it may have only been in the first ten minutes of me walking in. Progress was being made.

She talked about the amygdala and how it stores all of our past experiences and how it’s like a volcano that has many layers and how when something gets triggered it then accesses every time I’ve ever had that feeling, and this made perfect sense to me. I had thought of it as wells of emotion within me, something I was holding, something I was internalising, something that was there always with me. She helped me to see that the release can happen by changing it to be a volcano versus a well, and to do whatever I need to in order to get the hell out of the fucking well. She didn’t say it quite like that but this was definitely how I heard it.

She talked about how this kind of trauma creates spikes in my cortisol levels and with that comes fight, flight or freeze. This was also an ah-ha moment to me. I know that my cortisol levels have been spiked from childhood due to having a very traumatic upbringing, and over the years it was clear to me what I was doing I was definitely fighting or fleeing the situation. This time around I have been full on in freeze mode. I hadn’t even considered that freeze was an option, and that’s exactly where I’ve been for the past three years. Adding on the waiting for Permanent Residency and that just created a stronger freeze feeling for me. So I’ve been on edge pretty much my whole life and in this last stretch, it has become freeze and now I get to fucking work it out so I can move forward. No more internalising. I see it, I understand, I have ways to move past this, and now that is what I am doing.

She talked about the importance of getting my levels checked to make sure all of my vitamins, thyroid and all other blood markers are normal in case that needed attention. Thankfully I’ve had those earlier this year due to the endometriosis. Oh speaking of endometriosis, she also said that by keeping all of this in my “well” rather that in a volcano, it would create disease in my body, and then I told her about the endometriosis, which completely makes sense. It came on strong and seemingly all of a sudden, and lasted about ten months. After using the Mirena IUD and getting PR, it’s amazing how it’s settled down, but not at all surprising as I’m not as on edge about everything.

She talked about the importance of deep breathing. 3 count in, hold for 3 and release for 5. She said that if I’m in freeze mode and I’m shallow breathing all of my cells think that they are also in survival mode. She gave an extra oomph to it by talking about Taming the Tiger, and with the breathing to clench my fists in the in breath, and release my hands completely in the out breath to signal to my body physically as well that it’s time for this to go. I loved this. I love that this is actionable and we did it in her office, and I could feel the difference. I will continue to do this.

Overall I feel completely drained from today. My eyes are so tired and dry from all of the crying I’ve done, by far more than I’ve cried anytime in the past couple years, probably not since my father died two years ago. Interesting that it’s also his birthday today, feels very auspicious. I don’t want to be that kind of parent and it almost feels like I’m honouring that by getting help now.

I see her next week and I really look forward to it. I am writing it out. I am moving past this. Thank fucking god. I’m so ready.

My Artistic Creation Insight

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When I create words as my art by stringing them together in some kind of poetic way, they come out in a very emotional way of sharing. For those words to flow as they do when I am alone, it is usually because I am tapping into the deep well of emotion within me. Generally those emotions are darker and with more depth than if I am having a regular conversation.

When I am creating visual art, in the form of a painting, it is light, it is easy and it feels so free. A distinct difference of creating art with colour versus in black and white.

With social media, I found that originally my “art” was in sharing openly in black and white. Over the years, that became so limiting, and places like Facebook became entirely too emotional for me, so I had to step away for a while. Fb added the news feed along side my home area and although I normally choose to avoid the news in the paper, on the web, on the radio, and obviously on the tv as we don’t even own one, to find it where I logged in to be social became incredibly confronting. That space that used to be full of inspiration to me became toxic as i would end up diving into emotions that I didn’t log in with, that I picked up as I scrolled along.

Now with Instagram, I find it to be light, and to be easy, as it’s a visual art social media space, at least that is how I use it. There aren’t long winded messages, there aren’t tons of entrepreneurs and life coaches filling up my newsfeed alongside the news like on Fb, and it feels refreshing. I don’t even care about the comments really, but I do want the attention, which I find interesting to think about. I want the attention for my art. I appreciate my visual art and I want others to also appreciate it, in the form of attention.

Seeing how much I am outwardly creating is a positive gauge on how I am feeling. If I am producing a lot of visual art, I am living in the realm of more positive feelings. If I am posting deeper poems or writing in that fashion, then I am diving in. It’s nice to have at least these two very obvious art forms that I use to create.

Yay for creating. Yay for looking in. I’m ordering new canvases this week to keep on painting. Colourful, bold, large, and feeling good.

Of course this is the part where I always imagine how nice it would be if I did this thing that I enjoy doing and people paid me handsomely for it. Oh that would be nice if it happened. Imagine sharing my love and my inspiration via visual art to help inspire love in others. Yes please.

Death at 60

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What if 60 is the limit.
What if 60 is when the time is up.

What if I only have another 23 years left?

Another 20 years?

That isn’t much.

Patterns show me that most people don’t make it past 60.

If they do, then usually they seem to make it for a lot longer.

I want to be of healthy body and mind well into my 100s.

Is this a false belief? Is this overly optimistic? Is this based on any actual evidence?

I don’t want to die at 60. I don’t want to die at 70, I don’t want to die in another 20 or 30 years.

One of my biggest fears is that I won’t be able to experience and live all the different lives that I want to in my lifetime here on earth. It’s always scared me. I can detach from it and realise that death is such a natural part of the human existence, but it doesn’t stop me from deep down inside feeling terrified of it.

I’ve heard that’s what separates humans from other animals, is that we know we die. What if that in itself is a lie too, it’s only what we think we know. How do we know any of it? This is such a dangerous and exhausting spiral to go down, and I don’t want to.

I just have this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that I may only have another 20 years left and it is about to make me cry. I can focus on all the good things. In fact, this feeling emerged when I was thinking about all of the good things in my life last night. I was looking at my dear little son and feeling so much love for him, and I saw my husband and felt so much love, I thought about my incredible day with my mother’s group and my cup felt like it was overflowing, and I loved that feeling, I love that feeling. So why on earth is this dark shadow now creeping up, this shadow that makes me want to believe that I only have so many more years to live. I mean, I know it’s true. I know death is inevitable, but it’s not going to happen tomorrow, it’s not going to happen tonight. Honestly I really don’t know if any of that is true, I only know about right now.

Does it help writing it out? Do I feel like I’ve released some of the pressure? Yes. Can I take a deeper breath because I’ve let it out? Yes.

I want to live. I want to experience more life in my life. I have so much more to give, love, experience, absorb, learn, dance with. I need more time.