The Laughing Heart

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.
- Charles Bukowski

This poem touched me in an incredible, profound way. Maybe even more so because I saw it read by Tom Waits. Sometimes I can't help but hear songs, or poems, words in general, and feel like they concern me more than others. Like I was meant to hear them, and take them to heart.


I must admit, I'm not much of a poetry reader. I do have my favorites, like old Haféz-poems or poems written by one of my absolute favorite Norwegian writers Lars Saabye Christensen. I should read more poetry.

About finding the meaning

The meaning of life is supposed to be one of the great riddles of human kind. You know. The question. What does it all mean? Why are we here? Whats the meaning of life, the universe and everything? Many have tried to come up with an answer, and so far "42" is as good a guess as anyones.

You know what? I've figured it out. What the meaning of life is.

The meaning of life is to find meaning in it - any way you possibly can. What gives a human a sense of meaning in their life is probably as varied and diverse as human kind itself.

For me life has meaning when I learning new things. And when I can pass on what I know, what I've learned and experienced, to others. The meaning of life is to see new places, meet new people, to laugh, to simply be, as much and as happily as you can manage. The meaning of life is making a difference in someone elses life, however big or small that difference is. But most important of all, the meaning of life is love. As simple as that. Finding someone who loves you for you, for everything you are, someone who is safe, someone who feels like you're home, like you are right where you're supposed to be.

See? I've figured out the meaning of life. At least, the meaning of my life.

Weekly recap #1

In short: Not the best of weeks.

Monday I had an appointment with a study coordinator at school, and set up a plan for how I will finish this bachelor degree, seeing as I am "behind" on my internships. According to the plan I'll be finished with everything by summer 2013, exactly one year "late". I'm glad it won't take longer, but the thought of two internships in one semester next year is very daunting. I just hope I can hang in there and get through it.

Also got a mail from the student organization, who owns and rents out the house my apartment is in as well as the neighboring house. They'd been "made aware of me keeping a dog", and requested an application asking for permission to keep one. I've only had her here for two years already, so god knows who suddenly has objected to it now. Worst case scenario is they kick me out on my arse, or make me get rid of her.

Monday night I went to this choir practice, having been told that I had to do a singing test and that this was just "a formality". So imagine my surprise when I was basically tossed out of there after 10 minutes. I'd actually looked forward to join a choir, all though my experiences with it has been very limited I've really like doing it when I've had the chance. Apparently they had way too many "alts", which is the darkest of the female singing voices, and had no room for me. My chronically poor and tested self-confidence can't help but think that I sing so horribly they couldn't imagine having me in the choir.

Wednesday was one of those mandatory school days where we were divided into groups and had various workshops around our current theme "rehabilitation and people's health". I didn't particularly like the one where they forced us down into the gymnasium with some overly-perky, energetic instructor to do various strengthening exercises for 20 minutes. In everyday clothes. Not only am I in appallingly bad shape and weigh as much as your average manatee, but I also have a problem with er... perspiration. (Too much info, yeah yeah) It's mainly a horrible side effect to some medication I am on. Utterly humiliating. And I'm still sore.

Our current school assignment is this 3500 word long paper on "overall rehabilitation". We have a patient case and a "problem" to work from. This is the fourth one we are writing of these types of assignment, and it's not as daunting anymore. Having been in the governmental "system" of rehabilitation for many years I'm familiar with it and definitely have some views on how a patient should be met and treated, and some views on how to rehabilitate "the whole person". It's strange how I seem to draw as much experience from my personal life as I draw from my actual lectures and literature in this education. Our next paper will be on "palliative care", or "care for the dying patient". Yeah, yet another subject where I have more than enough personal experience to take from. Not particularly looking forward to that one.

And to top it all - the Dr Martens I ordered yesterday which I was so psyched about turned out not to be in stock after all and the order was cancelled. So much for trying to cheer myself up.

About socializing

Here's something I probably shouldn't admit, but will anyway:

Being social is hard.

It can be exhausting, it wears me out and can make me paranoid and nervous. To varying degrees, I will admit; there are certain times or in groups where being social is easier and less stressful than other times, it all depends on how well I know the people surrounding me. Or maybe it depends even more on how well they know, understand and accept me, how much we have in common, if we share the same humor and how much alcohol is in my bloodlevel (this last one is a particularly sad but true fact).

The reasons for this are many and probably complex and deeply psychological. Maybe it is because I have somewhat unusual interests. Or maybe everyone has, they're just better at hiding them and acting normal. Maybe people are just better at smalltalk than me, I'm bad at hiding when smalltalk bores me, at that point I just sign out of the conversation. I'm not the girl you'll choose foor a night of drinking alcopops while chatting about which fake tan works best and share mean gossip about the other girls at school. If you fancy a Dr Who marathon, or a game of Risk, or need someone to watch that Tom Waits live DVD with over an unknown amount of beers, or a pyjama-party in your "killer-rabbit" slippers while we make oreo cheesecake and I dye my hair purple, I'm your girl. It's just who I am, being "different" is part of my personality, but sometimes I really wish I could just be... plain and normal. Fit in. Have long blonde hair and be fashionable and host Tupperware parties. Maybe I'm not even being different, I'm just... specialized and specific.

My biggest problem is that I just don't know about people. I never know where I stand with them. I don't understand them. I always wonder what they say behind my back. It sounds paranoid, but after a few sudden, metaphorical punches to the face that I didn't see coming in the last few years, this paranoia has just grown. In fairness it can't be worse than the shit I keep telling myself, but getting it from someone else is always that little bit worse because it just confirms the suspicions you already have about yourself. This is probably mostly true about girls, because in general they tend to be conspiratory and sneaky and sometimes just flat out mean, cold bitches. Boys tend to have a more direct approach, more honest (and sometimes more violent), but at least you know where you stand; a few real punches, not the metaphorical ones, and you either make up or you try your best to avoid each other for eternity. I prefer the direct approach.

So I tend to keep to myself. Because it's more comfortable for me, but also because I can't help but think that it's best that I spare everyone else my odd company. I read an article once about people having "social sensitivity", and I fall into that category. Some people just are like that, and years of being depressed and isolating myself has made me used to having a lot of "me-time". Despite this I often feel lonely, and wish I was more social. Or, that being social was easier, that I had more good social times, and less of the stressful ones. But I would chose staying home alone over having a bad time in some social setting.

Who knows, maybe I wouldn't have been this way without internet. Because on this computer, I socialize all day, and being able to talk to my friends online probably fulfills the little need for socializing that I have. Talking to someone online entales less commitment, somehow, less severity. Online I can adjust how much I talk to people, and when, and finding people with mutual interests and hobbies is much easier. People are often more honest online as well, more direct, more open about who they are, what they're all about, and that way you can find out whether or not you can get along with that person a lot quicker than in real life. And to be honest, just about everyone I would count as my true friends today, bar a person or two, are people I "met" online. Most of them I have met in real life on one or more occasions, and spending time with them is always a lot less stressful than being with everyone else.

I do like people. I like that we are so diverse, so different and unpredictable and strange. But that is also what makes it so scary for me to relate to them. It's not your fault, it's probably all down to my own attitude towards myself and the people around me. Just... don't give up on me. I'll come around.

About being a snotball

For someone who is ridiculously prone to colds, flus and infections in all concievable forms, I have been blissfully free from them for a record breaking time lately. In fact I don't think I've even had so much as a cold since November 2010 when Mats passed. It's probably my change of diet that gets the credit for that. Smoothies, good fatty acids, proteins, lots of antioxidants and very little carbohydrates. Sugar is the devil, I tell ya.

Now, cue the irony of life. I'm supposed to attend my first choir practice today in a local choir. So naturally I've developed a cold that has reduced me to a phlegm-infested snotball with barbed wire for vocal chords. And I'm supposed to do a "singing test" as well, mostly just to determine what voice type I am (you know, soprano, mezzosoprano, contralt..). I know that I usually am a contralt, which is the deeper female voice, but with my throat being in the state it is I will either be thrown out on my arse, or stuffed with the guys in the rear singing bass.

FML.

About inspiration

This song was the inspiration for writing the last blog post.
I heard it in the car today on the iPod, not having heard it in years, and it struck a chord in me, no pun intended.

Magnet - Believe

Walking in with open eyes
Fingers crossed, throw the dice
Not enough room in here for compromise
Turning water into wine, or turning sober and left behind
One chance, out of my hands, and it all starts making sense

I’m gonna do this like I know what I’m doing
I’m gonna do this my own way
‘Cause I don’t know what I’m supposed to believe in
Might as well believe in me

I don’t need to see the light
I just want to get this right
Cool, calm, not alarmed, and not uptight
‘Cause I’ll remember to forget whatever it is I won’t get
I’m already a junkyard of ends that never ever met

I’m gonna do this like I know what I’m doing
I’m gonna do this my own way
‘Cause I don’t know what I’m supposed to believe in
Might as well believe in me

‘Cause I know on my part,
There’s no one else to blame
So when those hummingbirds start singing out my name
I’m due to pay my dues, I’ve nothing I can lose

I’m gonna do this like I know what I’m doing
I’m gonna do this my own way
‘Cause I don’t know what I’m supposed to believe in
Might as well believe in me

About believing in yourself

Hi, my name is Emily and I am a borderliner.

"Borderliner" means having borderline personality disorder (hereafter shortened to PD), also known as emotionally unstable PD. I was diagnosed with it at 22, and being so gave me a lot of answers about how I "work", what makes me think, react or feel the way I do, seemingly out of my control all of it. A few years of good therapy and finally finding medication that worked has made me a lot "better". That's the good part of it being diagnosed "early", you can work your way out of it, at least to some extent.

But I will never be miraculously cured, it'll never be completely gone. Having developed this PD has influenced my life and personality to such an extent that it will always be with me. And in some way I'm even thankful for it - having gone through this therapy has taught me so much about myself, my family, about social interaction, about roles, about human psychology, about life in general. It has also made me more aware of what goes on inside my head, given me more insight into myself - for better or worse I suppose.

Being a borderliner means hating yourself. Doubting yourself and your self worth, being convinced that everyone around you dislikes you, or if they by some miracle dont despise you they will leave you eventually when they get sick of you. All you can focus on are the things you can't do, your failures, your shortcomings, the things that went wrong. Every human has to deal with poor self-confidence to a lesser or greater extent, but borderliners pushes it to the extreme and turns self-destruction into a sport. And of course, all the things they think about themselves eventually becomes true. Because who can bear to be with someoen that self-destructive and depressed in the long run? Their excessive focus on all the things they fail to do becomes so prevalent they become unable to do anything at all. They lash out at people as a form of self-defense, and are impossible to relate to. And if they do let you in, let anyone come close, they hang on for dear life until they smother that person to death. An evil downward spiral, a self-fulfilling prophecy and a catch 22.

The fact that I am aware of these things in itself means that I have come a long way. Being mindful of your own destructive thoughts and how they do nothing but push you further down is one of the key aspects of having this PD that borderliners need to figure out. Because what good does it actually do anyone to beat yourself up that badly? It will never help you or motivate you to change your situation, it will never enable you to do the right thing, all it will is make you feel more depressed and worthless. The day you stop beating yourself up about all the things you didn't manage that day and in stead focus on having a new chance tomorrow, that is the day you start makign progress.

Now, I have become so much "better" that I started school. I've finished two years of my bachelor degree in nursing and just started my third and final year. But the fact that I am still at it, without failing an exam or without dropping out, is frankly a bleedin' miracle. One would think that a university where more or less all the teachers are nurses with many years working experience is the last place where you would hear phrases like "oh but you have a mental history, you can't be a nurse." And I have been told that. In many different ways. I was threatened to leave my first internship, otherwise they would fail me. "The patients have enough to cope with, they don't need your problems as well."

You could ask why on earth I decided to go into such a intense and social occupation where you get very close to people, when I probably have more than enough things to deal with on my own. And I'm not even going to argue, it's a valid point. But I have grown up around illness all my life - my mum had heavy asthma all her life that eventually took her life 13 years ago, I've been plagued with bad mental and physical health all my life, and my best friend whom I only got to know for 4 years had cancer three times. My mum was also very passionate about helping the weak ones in the society, she worked with mentally and physically disabled people and taught me from a very early age to have respect and compassion for people who are different in any way.

My most important argument for wanting to become a nurse is that I want to help people, because I find meaning in it. Being a nurse means that you can come into work when having a bad or just very boring day, and make a difference in someone elses life. I can make them feel better, heal them, help them, make someone smile, and when I do I forget about myself for a while, about my own troubles. It puts life in perspective and reminds me that my life has a meaning, that I am here for a reason.

Despite having had people reassuring me that I am a good person, having grateful patients who has told me I am a good nurse, the nagging doubt stays. Should I become a nurse? After my traumatic first internship, where I was basically told that I should find myself another occupation pronto and was told how unlikeable I was, that nagging doubt has always been there. When I started school I was "just" worried about whether or not I was going to make it through school, and I frankly didn't consider my own abilities. I've proved to myself that I can make it through school, but what about life after school? I don't have any ambitions (that word again..) of working full time, I honestly doubt that I will be able to, I need time to myself and social interactions can make me pretty exhausted, plus keeping general upkeep in my own head takes more time than it does for the "sane" person. But what if my personality disorder is so obvious and bad that I just can't do it.

People are generally better at seeing the limitations than seeing the possibilities in situations. And I absolutely hate how much this diagnose, with all it entales, have limited me. In an ideal world where I still had my mum and my best friend, and no history of depressions or mental problems, where could I have been, what would my life have been like? But there is a part of me that doesn't want to believe that this diagnose limits me. That just refuses to accept that fact. "Damn it, I can become a nurse and a damn good one," it says. I wholeheartedly believe that people who has been through rough times, depressions, personal loss and trauma, are better equipped to show genuine understanding and empathy. Some things you just can't learn through reading it in a book. And I also believe that those who have struggled, but who can put it behind them, or learn to live with it, and can find a way to use it for something good; those people become the best nurses. But will I be able to put it behind me, or at least learn to live with it?

I realise that I can be moody, and that I am very much an "individual", and can be viewed as an odd one. I have particular interests that aren't necessarily of the most feminine persuasion, I dress funny and I have my own opinions. And I don't expect everyone to love me, or even like me, because that will never happen. But the impression I got from my first internship was basically that I was a horribly unpleasant and unlikeable individual, to such an extent that I would never be a nurse. And the borderliner within me can't help but wonder if maybe they are right, and that I have a major blind spot where I thought I had some insight into myself and how people view me.

Keeping myself motivated, staying positive and believing in myself is hard in the best of times. Lacking a major support system makes it even harder - my family are practical realists who are a lot better at pointing out the limitations than seeing the beforementioned possibilities, and I don't have a pile of friends around me offering me support. (But, the few I do have are probably the ones keeping me going <3) Add in the fact that my own teachers and mentors at school as well as my case worker at the employment department are questioning my capability to be a nurse as well, and it becomes apparent that me still being in school is a miracle. Sometimes I think the only reason I'm still at it because I just can't face another failure, I just can't give up on something one more time. If I did it would be the death of me. And if I did, Mats would make lightning strike me down. Repeatedly. I have to finish this, so I can say that I have at least finished something.

There are probably as many opinions of what makes up a good nurse as there are nurses around - people value different traits and abilities differently. Nurses can have such a huge array of jobs, from psychiatry to geriatrics to working in an ambulance or behind a desk. The fact that it is so hard to define what makes up a good nurse, and that there are so many ways of performing this occupations, is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand it is impossible to measure whether or not I am a good nurse through what feedback I get from other people, because what will get you praise and approval one place might get you trouble in another place. Some value efficiency and keeping the time schedule, some value good patient contact, some value good medical care. On the other hand, the fact that it is such a diverse occupation must mean that I will be able to do it in some form or another? And I just have to keep believing that somewhere out there is a place who will want me, a place where I could do a good job and make a difference in people's lives, despite my obvious limitations.

About a new start

I've been thinking about starting this whole proper blog-malarky up again for a while. Tumblr is great and all, but it's not the right arena for long wall of texts, and every now and then I have a huge rant in me that I need to get out. Plus, I miss writing.

I am painfully aware that I probably disclose too much information about myself when I talk to people. It makes people uncomfortable, I know that as well. They didn't ask for my life story. I can't tell you why I do it. Maybe I'm trying to get some sort of acknowledgment or attention or maybe I just want to be pitied, maybe all of the above. My story is a sad one, and sometimes I wonder if that's all, if that's everything I am and what makes me me - my story. If that's all I have to offer in this world.

So by blogging, my rants and ravings about what goes on in my mind will at least only go out to the few who actively came on this blog - if they come on here they asked for it. And maybe it'll make it easier to keep my mouth shut in the outside world.

I promise I won't just write about the sad things. And if I do I'll try to throw in the old joke here and there.