PSTD
Kia Ora! Kei te pēhea koutou?
That's "Hello. How are you (all)?" in Maori. (pronounced as "keeora (with one r roll), katie pe-ah KOHtoh?) Kei te pehea koe is how are you to one person, and that's said like KAYtie pe-AH kway?)
:-)
I haven't update for a month now. Er...ehm...well I haven't been up to much, so there has not been much to write about.
I had my first German test last thursday which I think went over pretty well. The grading scale at Victoria is a bit weird, as, explained to me by a girl in my class, nz kids don't have much of an entrance exam to get into Victoria and so there "are a lot of STUPID people getting in", and thus the grading scale is lower.
If you want to get an A you only have to get an 85! Seems that each school in succession I go to has a lower grading scale. My definition of an A from high school to now has dropped from a 93 to an 85. And it's not all that difficult to get an 85 either...I got an 86 on my writing assignment and thought with some shame that it was a lower sort of B grade, when it was actually not that bad.
Anyway.
I don't think I'll be at Victoria for long, as I need to e-mail a guy at Massey about my situation and set up a meeting with him to figure out what sort of art degree I can finish in. I don't want all of my credits to not contribute to anything. The first time going to Massey we were unfortunate in who we met with as they were obviously not the right people to inform me about what I was going after.
So we've made some calls and seems that these newer people have a good inkling of what the sitch is. I think it might turn out that I just get a bachelor of arts degree, just a regular old thing, not in anything completely specific. I wish that Athens had offered such a thing so that perhaps I could be finished with school this June.
I am tired of the school thing. Which is surprising as I thought I'd love to be in school always or that maybe I was a little bit more of an academic, but I just want to move on and try the 'life' thing for a while. Seems that here people's expectations are not as demanding of whether one goes to university or how long it takes. It's okay if it takes you a while to figure it all out.
New Zealand is just kind of regular old nz to me now. I've made a friend from my german class whose name is Anne, and while she's only 17 she seems quite mature and knowledgeable for her age, so that's been nice to have someone to chat with, to bounce thoughts off of, someone with which to make comparisons of countries. And it is nice while she is only taking this German class in a 'for the meantime' sort of way as well as she is going to go study violin at the royal london school of music sometime in the next few months. So it seems she is a pretty good musician. And I probably won't be at Victoria this winter either, so it works.
This Monday starts our two-week break, which is nice. It seems that it's more of a mid term break, and then between terms there is always a one week break. And then not as much summer vacation time, but who needs nearly three months of time off anyway? :-)
I've recently been thinking of what being in nz is doing for me. For one, it seems to be allowing me some perspective (via distance) on these past few years of my life, most of which were depressing and fairly confusing. Odd how it seemed to be that I needed to get out of the country in order to have more hindsight. In my mind I imagine myself looking from nz in to a very large telescope over the ocean to the past. And I've been seeing very interesting things. I think this 'move' is allowing for me to rest and heal some things, to get out of self-destructive situations, to stop and start again in a better direction.
I'm sure you might remember me how I was in freshman year, strange, bubbly, emotional...or maybe just as a funny sort of girl who made cool art. And then after that year, of someone who became maybe moodier or more withdrawn. I don't know. But I think it's odd that I can pinpoint it to events of a summer which led to my decline in functioning.
It was all due to my asinine king's island portrait job. And remembering it, I couldn't remember if I told any of you about my ridiculous time I had, or what had went on. But it explains a lot of behavior which happened after freshman year. My mini Liz-dilemmas.
I know I don't divulge much on my personal life, that sometimes I'm hard to get to know, but I guess I want you guys to know about the KI thing. Not so much for sympathy but that it's important and might explain a lot of things. Maybe I'll treat it as an explanational confession of sorts, something which was a catalyst for my depressions and my sliding down and neurotic behavior, and ultimately what led to my moving to nz. And you guys are my friends, so you probably deserve an explanation?
I did have a nervous/emotional breakdown at my work on day that summer of '05 where it felt like I cried for 2 or 3 hours straight and I had to be sent home half way through my shift and given 3 or 4 days off to 'recover'. The environment of that place was a slow and insidious form of torture for a person like me. I learned from it that I have delicate nerves and just can't work in a place which grates on my nervous system incessantly for 8 hours at a time. I wish my body wasn't this way, but it just happens to be really physically/emotionally sensitive.
In any case, I developed a fear of crowds and a fear of 'people' in general, just from all the park guests and having to 'perfom' with my artwork for them, which led to me being quite unsure of my art making at school afterwards, as I got paranoid of being in class as it felt similarly to my job where people would watch me draw and then judge my work and performance afterwards.
After that summer it was very difficult to go to classes, even to just walk there by myself because of all the crowds of students, and the feeling that everyone was staring at me when in class. I wanted to hide all my artwork, work in an isolated room instead of in a printmaking shop with 15 other people. Everything became a mess. And I also developed a fear of jobs. I can't tell you how difficult it still is to even write a little cover letter to a potential employer or how long it took me to make up a resume. I just stop thinking. I freeze and my brain goes numb. It's paralyzing. I really wish I could get a job, a little quiet one, but it's still hard to get past the initial wave of dread and stomach twists. It made me feel abnormal and picky, "why can't I just go and get a job like everyone else? Why why why?". There were so many whys and barrages loading on to my self-esteem. Lots of self-deprecation and poking, questions and feeling like a complete failure at 'life'.
I hate king's island for that. I'd be good at a lot of jobs.
And not having a job, or having had one in Athens or anything, I felt made me appear lazy and irresponsible, when really I was just deathly afraid and needed a lot of help and encouragement.
And then there were all these confusing emotions about Chris, which maybe I won't go into, but it was a big contributor to stress.
But, I guess I'm sorry if I seemed weird or withdrawn, but I was dealing with natures of things, half of it not knowing where any of it was coming from as I didn't realize the extent to which the king's island situation had affected me, so I couldn't explain it anyone, much less to myself, and the way I was explaining to myself...well...it wasn't healthy. My self-esteem just dropped because I felt like it was all because of 'me' and that my failure was my fault (which it half was) and so it naturally resulted in a lot of depression and tremendous loads of self-hate. It had tones of ptsd, and I've been now dealing with these issues for 3 or more years, which seems like a very long time. And it was. You, my friends, were the only bright sparks of my day to day living. A lot else was just very difficult and unhappy.
It feels like I've hated myself for so long. It was a defense mechanism. It still is.
I call myself names and other things. Have a bad self-critic. But I won't go into that, as it's also from many other things not related to king's island.
And people may think, well how can a person get ptsd from a job? And one which was just in an amusement park? But I think of it (and feel it) as the park having raped me. Maybe that sounds extreme, but it really did strip me of all my abilities to function and be content, tore out all my coping mechanisms and ate them. I feel I went into the job alright and then was spit back out all beat up and broken as a messy scramble of my former spirited self.
It really was a form of physical and emotional/mental assault. When I read about trauma and PSTD I see myself reflected in the descriptions. Which is uncomfortable and strange as it really didn't 'seem' that I went through a trauma, especially to an outsider's opinion, but I have experienced most to all the trauma symptoms. Except my stressor was chronic and over time, not an 'event' per se... but still. It led to an event (the breakdown).
"This syndrome has two stages: the immediate or acute phase, in which the victim's lifestyle is completely disrupted by the...crisis, and the long-term process, in which the victim must reorganize this disrupted lifestyle."
I've been going through the long term process now. It's like I've only just really discovered that I am in dire need for a re-organization of life and lifestyle.
Does that enlighten anyone? I don't know what you guys saw of me, or how you saw/see me, maybe saw me as irrational and irresponsible, confused and riding on whims, not accomplishing anything. I don't know if you noticed a change between my freshman self and the self afterwards. I remember asking a few of you to walk me to dining halls and such (it was because of anxiety). But maybe that's all.
It is hard to explain, as the cause was not physical. Maybe I shouldn't bring it up, but it's not like I was hit with a car (like Lacie was that one year, and yes she did have pstd symptoms afterwards and it was not a fun thing to deal with at all, as I had talked to her about her anxiety about crossing streets and her nightmares about it) but people knew about it and could tangibly see that it happened and that there was a reason for her to be afraid of streets and cars.
I really hate what it did to my creative morale. That's what I'm most angry about. It distorted something which I loved doing into something filled with awful insinuations and overlying filters of perfection and paranoia. Maybe I partly moved to nz to refind my creative self, to save it.
Anyway.
I am doing a bit better. It's a slow process. I need the healing and the distance, the time for figuring things out.
It's gotten colder here, with autumn weather and so I can wear more of my clothes.
My camera is dying, so I haven't taken any pictures, which has made me depressed as I like having that means of creation and now I don't. Since my birthday is in August maybe I'll consider getting help in buying a new one.
But here is a picture of us from Easter, and the view from our small front lawn:
I do like Wellington as even though Wadestown is near the city, there's still a lot of nature surrounding.
I've taken to walking down to the cable car for class, and it takes me maybe about 25 minutes, but there are lots of trees along the way. And in the back of our house is a small 'gorge' where there are many trees and birds, and at night sometimes I hear a morepork, which is a small owl in nz, and which makes a sound like it's name Click to hear a morepork. It's very almost deathly quiet at night so the call is clear and soft; very soothing.
I really do think that all of you should move here.
Or if you visit I don't think you'll want to go back home.
I really mean it when I say it makes me think of you, especially those of you who are environmentally minded. All of the house cleaner sprays etc. are environmentally friendly which I think is amazing. And people are concerned about energy conservation and such, I'm pretty sure that all food is free of genetic engineering (I remember coming back to the u.s. once and not wanting to eat anything because I could taste all the preservatives). And there is so much nature everywhere. Even in the cities.
And I see Honda Fits everywhere. :-)
There's a light blue one which is usually parked by my class building at Victoria.
Anyway. I'll stop promoting the country... but really...ohhhh. There's so much.
Okay. I need some lunch.