Time To Get This (Risky) Show Back On The Road

It is Day 75 of Lockdown in South Africa.

Schools across the country reopened yesterday for Gr 7 and Gr 12 learners .

It was and still is a surreal experience. Our kids are quiet. They listen to instructions. They don’t argue or backchat. ( Quiet Xhosa children? Whaa…ttt???)

So…welcome to the new school world of masks, sanitizer spray around every corner, social distancing dots and lines and stickers wherever you look to help the kids understand what is meant by being 1.5 m from the closest human at all times.

No hugging. No physical contact during break times.

What a lonely place to be!

Today I stood in front of a class again for the first time in almost three months. Breathing in my own out breath for 30 minutes behind a mask. Glasses steamy, voice muffled, facial expression deleted. We don’t realize how much of our personality is hidden when our mouths are covered! I had to repeat myself often. No one caught my jokey side. It was all very clinical and factual.

And by “class’ I mean one quarter of the Gr 7 group as we have divided the learners into 4 groups to allow for social distancing in the classroom. Seventeen anxious pairs of eyes watched me silently from behind their face masks. It was still QUIET. Scarily quiet. Our kids are shell shocked.

( The Grade 9’s and 10’s  I normally teach will only be allowed back in 4 weeks’ time. So English Gr 7 it is for now. )

Yesterday and today started with gate duty.

Mask on, gloves on, surface and hand sanitizer at the ready. I sprayed hands, the bottom of shoes, backpacks, plastic carrier bags, boarder luggage. Sides, handles and base.

Then on to the taking of each child’s temperature.

Followed by each child answering a questionnaire about any symptoms of illness, visits to “hotspots” of covid19, any close contact with an infected person.

We started at 7hoo and the last kids trickled in at around 8h15.

Tomorrow, we do it all again.

It is clear that our learners need reassurance. Our main mission during the next few weeks will be to educate them about Covid19. To help them adapt , to ease their anxiety, to encourage a positive attitude and remind them about the hope we have for their futures.

It is this hope that took us all back to school.

Hope in us, hope in them.

Time for action.

One day at a time, as you would climb any mountain.

 

 

 

Kicked The Kitchen Cupboard Yet???

( written on Lockdown DAY 70 in South Africa , 10 weeks in )

Don’t do it. Kick the kitchen cupboard. It hurts. I know because I’ve done it a few times during the past two weeks. You can safely say that emotionally I am now crazily swiveling between ANGER and SADNESS if you look at the 5 stages of lockdown emotions proposed by Anne Marie Collins.

( https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-8190399/The-five-emotional-stages-coronavirus-lockdown-impact-mental-health.html)

 

One minute I’m crying in the bathroom,  the next I’m furious with the world.

It’s difficult to pinpoint why. I’ve been trying to analyze the emotion objectively but so far I can’t call it any specific thing. It’s just THERE. Like in the movie Bird Box where they all land up living “happily ever after” in a huge glass bird box…It’s all beautiful and peaceful and harmonious except that THEY CANNOT LIVE OUTSIDE THAT CAGE. Trapped forever with a glass ceiling as your sky.

Trapped. Freedom deleted. Dog on a long chain, walking until the chain snaps you back to reality. Pressed down. Controlled. Manipulated into the “new reality” our lives have become. Cut off, confined, closed in, imprisoned. By a tiny little deadly thing hanging in the air we breathe.

 

 

We went to East London last week. A trip to try and get back a feeling of normality in our bones.

But nothing about the trip felt “normal”.

Yes, you could walk into shops, even buy winter clothing, but without being able to try them on first. Police tape closing off all changing rooms. And with a “no return” policy in place.

Yes, there were people around. People with worried eyes, quickly getting what they needed and then getting the hell away from the place. No shared smiles, no greetings, no WARMTH.

No music in the shops. Never thought I would miss the music in shops! Even Christmas music would have been better than the awful silence!

Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh

Hey, jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh!

It was like a visit to the pharmacy. Clinical, cold. Quick, before you caught whatever illness the person in front of you in the queue had.

We bought lunch at a garage shop, eating in the car on the way back. How I missed our usual pasta joint…alive with smells, cheerful Saturday crowds, great food, LIFE…!

 

I’m going to steal these words from Erika Boissiere :

“In this pandemic, it’s almost as if we’re living in a collective state of suspended animation. Shelter-in-place or stay-at-home orders, quarantines and social-distancing mandates have all led to a persistent, almost eerie, shared discomfort. Life under lockdown can feel like being adrift on the Atlantic: we’re desperate for any sign of land, yet nothing but an ominous, uncomfortable vastness looms. That vastness is uncertainty itself.” 

(https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikaboissiere/2020/04/29/covid-19-lockdown-when-will-this-feeling-end-how-to-manage-through-uncertainty/#2c995b6112d6)

I spent some time crying on the bathroom floor today.

Why?

Because I’ve turned into an overcritical parent. I’m tired of dealing with my cooped up kids. Fighting more, constantly hungry, missing their school and their friends. 

I’ve become a swearing under your breath type person.

I resent not being able to do my job the way I used to. 

I resent the amount of chocolate I’m devouring daily. 

I resent the fact that my life feels so out of control and even more the fact that I can’t see or predict the ending. 

From my ship to yours…

Don’t kick the kitchen cupboards.

Try slamming a door or two.

It works better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ANGRY BIRD

( written on Day 54 of Lockdown in South Africa. 7 Weeks, 4 days and no end in sight. )

Chickens.

There are too many chickens on this farm.

They’re in the garden, they sleep in the trees in front of our bedroom, they’re in the driveway when I’m late for school ( the time waaaayyyyyy back when I still drove to school ).  Chickens, chickens just every . bloody . where. 

I find chickens super annoying. They have this attitude. Like the world belongs to them.

They always sound semi-hysterical. And they each have a unique semi-hysterical cooke-doodle-dooo!!!  Bet you didn’t know that about chickens, now did you?

Farmer husband loves his chickens. If he could have 300 around the farmhouse, he would.

When I asked him this morning how many chickens are walking around on this property he looked quite forlorn.

“There’s only 10 left. And only 4 have chicks. That dog of ours is single-handedly demolishing my chickens. He eats the baby chicks as soon as they start walking around. ”

( clever dog. She knows there’s an imbalance in nature going on over here and she’s determined to restore things to a NORMAL amount of chickens per square metre. )

( Nooooooo. It’s not me killing the overflow of chickens. Don’t call the SPCA.)

I was confronted with a freshly slaughtered cooked chicken for lunch during one of my first visits to the farm. Have you ever seen a freshly slaughtered cooked chicken?

You can actually see the trauma it went through. It’s legs stick up  in the air in frozen shock.  It’s meat is not normal colored chicken meat. There’s a blue-ish purple tinge to it. Where the head used to be there’s like a question mark hanging in the air. Like “Why ME?” it says. No. Thank. You. I prefer my chicken coming out of Woolies, pink, deboned, skinned and cut into fillets. The way chickens should be.

I have been awake since four this morning. The first chicken thought morning had broken when I switched on the bathroom light for a quick visit. Chicken nr 1 let chicken nr 2 and 3 and 4 ( living on neighbouring farms ) know about this loudly and clearly. And off they went…

And I couldn’t get back to sleep. So. Angry Bird over here.

(ps. I have actually yelled at chickens from the safety of my window.

“Shut Up, Chicken!!!” had no effect on any of them. Just for the record.

Arrogant,  Resentful,  Cocky bastards.

I rest my case.

 

 

Hows The Panic In Your Pandemic?

Today is Day 49 of Lockdown in South Africa. We have been in our homes, only leaving to buy essentials for seven weeks .

I initially started this blog to share my experiences as a teacher. Maybe share some tips with first year educators and maybe prevent them from making the same mistakes I made in my first year or three.

The blog was jogging along nicely until BAM! Covid19.

And suddenly there was no school, no interaction with pupils, nothing new to share.

And so, the blog turned into something a bit more personal.

I’ve tried to keep things lighthearted and humorous. I’m finding it harder and harder to locate my funny bone these days, as is most of the world, I suppose.

In the past seven weeks I have battled anxiety, depression and just a complete lack of motivation. Big red flags for me. I seem to be coping better having started a 30 day walking challenge. Huffing and puffing uphill forces the lungs to take deeeeep breaths and the blood to circulate to warm up cold hands,feet and heart.

I have done some research on the psychological effects of Lockdown and came across Anne Marie Collins. She is President of the Australian Association of Psychologists in Melbourne, Victoria, where she works with patients who are battling personal trauma and difficult family circumstances. (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-8190399/The-five-emotional-stages-coronavirus-lockdown-impact-mental-health.html)

She is the lady responsible for the featured image, describing the Stages of Lockdown on the psyche, much like the stages of Grief proposed by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross.

Initially we experience Disbelief when confronted with our new reality. Then we could move to Anger, Sadness, Acceptance and Optimism. It is not a linear process. We can swing back and forth a few times before finally feeling Optimistic.

So where are you in this cycle?

Personally I’m somewhere between Anger and Sadness. A bit of Acceptance thrown in, now that our school is finally joining the ranks of distance learning. WhatsApp is the only free online service our students can access.

As of tomorrow, I will be sending work out to 94 Gr 9 learners and 36 Gr 10’s. That is, if they manage to join the groups. But it’s something. It’s a start. Success will depend on their OWN motivation to work. There will be no cajoling from teachers, begging, pleading for attention and concentration. For the first time in their lives, learning will be UP TO THEM.

We shall see what we shall see…

I want to end this post with a few photos taken inside our house.

Having spent so much time in here there are a few scenarios driving me completely bezonkers. Maybe you can relate?

IRRITATION 1

Soooo…Welcome to our hall table. Initially it was carefully decorated by me with the big flower vase and the mirror behind it. This is the first thing visitors see when they enter our house. It was meant to look artsy and homely and stylishly farm-ish. And NOW look at it! Dumping ground. I have given up on this area.

IRRITATION 2

These are the cushions I bought for the couch. To be placed at each end. To look quirky and artsy and farm-ish. THEY ARE NEVER ON THE COUCH. They now live on the floor,compliments of my daughter. I have given up on this area.

IRRITATION 3

…can they not SEE the toilet paper below? Do they need their eyes tested?

I have given up on this area.

IRRITATION 4

This piece of wood is hanging down from our bedroom ceiling. And that mouldy bit next to it.

I have given up on this area. Husband is farming. Mouldy ceiling? Pah!!

IRRITATION 5

JUST. WHY???

Maybe there should be an extra stage in our cycle of Lockdown.

MAJOR IRRATIONAL IRRITATION with SMALL THINGS in your house you cannot get the inhabitants to change?

In between Disbelief and Anger?

May we all reach Optimism soon.

And may your house be filled with people changing the toilet roll.

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry, Male people

Growing up in a VERY conservative Afrikaans church going family during the 1970’s and being the eldest of four sisters left me with laughable ideas about men and their ways.

It was the time in South Africa when all good Afrikaners had a certain lifestyle with certain rules attached to that lifestyle. Good Christian girls and women wore hats to church. They ITCHED. Especially in winter when the hat was a knitted one, usually with a huge flower sewn onto it’s side just so.

We wore white socks with little frills up to just under the knee. We had special “church dresses” not to be worn for any occasion other than going to church. In church we sat very, very still. If we didn’t, a pinch from a mother or a father or an auntie quickly set us straight.

After church there was tea. Served in the sitting room.

At around 12h30 lunched was served. “Skaapboud” ( mutton) with gravy, sweet pumpkin, yellow rice and green beans cooked with a tiny piece of bacon and mixed with boiled potato.

Apple pie and custard for desert.

Tummies full, we were told to go and play. The grownups went to their room and had a rest.

Playing outside was still safe.

Boys?

The first boy I liked was in my class in Gr 3 . He gave me a plastic ring to seal our relationship. We never spoke again after the ring giving.

At around age 12 we were given “The Talk”. A book with the facts of life was thrust into my hands by my poor, embarrassed mother. The book had pictures. It was all horrifying.

And there were now rules about boys. Don’t let them hug you. Don’t go anywhere alone with them. Do not UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES find yourself in a lying down position with a boy in a room. Don’t lie on a couch, on grass, in a tree, on a floor. Stay upright or you will be sorry!

 

It was all very confusing. And certainly not positive in any way whatsoever.

And “the facts” we heard about boys from other girls were not helping. One I believed for many years was that men have an extra bone in their bodies. In a strategic place.

When the gynea told me that I was expecting a boy with my first pregnancy I immediately thought “WHAT? ME? a BOY??? I know absolutely NOTHING about boys!”

During the first few weeks of my son’s life he woke up soaked around four times a night. I had to re-dress him each time from head to toe.

We thought it was the type of disposable nappies we were using.

So we bought every brand on the market. Tested out different sizes.

Until someone told me to turn his boy bits downwards when putting on his nappy.

Who knew?

Not me of the  extra bone anatomy theory.

My son taught me valuable lessons about boyhood.

I know now that boys ( and men ) are just people with boy bits attached.

They are human, they cry and they feel. They can be vulnerable. They can hurt.

It’s been eye opening.

So sorry, dear male people.

I was wrong about you.

 

 

 

 

 

ASSUME makes an Ass out of U and ME

ASSUME : To believe to be true without checking first.

                   To tick off from a list as done when you weren’t the one doing the thing.

                   To view anything as A Done Deal.

I made many, many assumptions in my first year of teaching. Assumptions that cost me dearly in sweets, chocolates, bribe money and sanity.

In my search for classroom management strategies I came across a few interesting crazy ideas I assumed would work.

I believed a few things about basic human decency and I believed that most of my learners would possess some of it.

I first went into the classroom assuming that:

• Children know how to share. ( they don’t)
• Children know what is fair.    ( they don’t)
• Children will consider others when acting. ( 98% won’t )
• Children will be honest ( nope, most won’t )

ASS 1 :

Many books about learner behaviour modification focus on reward as a motivation to change Wild Johnny into Holy Johnny. Also, the use of competition between classes to keep their actions in check. So I first tried a “competition” between my three Gr 9 classes. Each class would start the week with 500 points. I wrote “500” next to the name of each class in large letters on the left hand side of the board in white chalk.  Any misbehaviour would result in the deduction of points.  At the end of the week the class with the most points would receive a chocolate each as reward.  Simple.

All was well until I walked into my classroom after the first break. Using chalk for this point story was a mistake. All of the points had been changed while I was having my well deserved coffee in the staff room. And I had kept no other record so had to start from scratch.

Also, a competition stretching over five days was just too long. The worst behaved class realized pretty quickly that there was no way they could win because there was simply too many Unholy Johnnys among them and they started acting out by Wednesday. Poof! Competition failed. Mam “awarded” the winning class (that was behaving well in any case) with their promised chocolate each, costing around R10 X 32 learners, ie R320. Not having changed any behavour at all. Assumption fail.

ASS 2: 

Another tactic I read about was to help learners listen to your lesson without interrupting you. Once they were focused and listening well you “reward” them by throwing a sweet at the best behaved child.

No. NO-NO-NO-NO-NO-NO-NO!!!

I have no words.

Assumption BIG FAIL. 

ASS 3:

I still hadn’t learnt my lesson with the “competition” idea and so the universe continued to teach me.

I decided to award INDIVIDUAL pupils ( 3 per class ) for good behaviour during the week. Every time I was impressed with a child I made a tick next to their names on my class list. The top 10 names per class went into a “hat” and I made a draw each Friday.

My budget had shrunk so I bought cheapish chocolates. Chomps, I think it was.

Big was the disappointment on the faces of the “winners” when they didn’t each receive a SLAB of chocolate. Because that’s a REAL chocolate, right? ( ungratefull little shits school people )

So. Chocolate too small and not worth the effort.

ASS FAIL.

ASS 4:

I have only ever really struggled with two classes. One in my first year and one in my second year. At the time, I didn’t start the year off on the right note. My rules were not in place and I didn’t have any real consequences for breaking them. I was awarding kids for behaviour they should have been displaying in first place. I’m ashamed to say that Assumption 4 was equal to good old bribery and corruption.

I picked out the worst 4 Unholy Johnnys from the worst class  and placed them in the front row where I could see them. I also told them that they would each receive R10 from me on a Friday if they didn’t give me grief during the week.

( Hangs head in shame )

“So Mam, you are paying us to behave? ”

Yes. Mam was willing to pay you to behave so that she could actually get some teaching done.

My bribe failed. It failed because the 4 most Unholy Johnnys had various reasons for giving trouble in a classroom. ADD, ADHD, smoking weed during breaks, drinking in the toilets, rebellion against a system in which they had failed since they could remember.

R10 every Friday? Gmph . Assumption FAIL.

ASS 5 

My first year of teaching ended on a high note. I felt like I belonged 100 % at my school, I felt loved and respected by most of my pupils and I had managed to achieve a not too shabby pass rate for my subject.

Time for a celebration!

I bought R500’s worth of sweets and planned to give each of my three Gr 9 classes around 5 sweets each. I put them all in a big bowl and told the first class of the day to pass the bowl along and only take about 5 sweets each because the bowl had to last for 2 more classes. I assumed that the kids would be fair about this.

Major ASS FAIL.

Three of the girls grabbed the bowl and ran out of the school building with it. I never saw them or the bowl again.

The rest of the kids were understandably upset. I was furious.

But once again, I had made an ASSUMPTION about kids and it came back to bite me.

These days class parties are only for my base class. I preach beforehand about manners, sharing and civilized behaviour around yummy food. This year they are in Gr 11 and we can now have a pleasant “party” without chaos. ( mostly)

What did I learn from all these sweet/chocolate/money disasters?

I learnt that I have to have rules and clear consequences.

Misbehaviour occurs due to a variety of reasons. It’s sometimes a simple matter of just not KNOWING how to behave. Not being able to sit still. Not being able to focus attention. Not understanding the subject matter and feeling inferior. If I can be the joker then nobody will notice that I just don’t “get” what teachers are saying.

Substance abuse gives kids a confidence to stand up to authority they normally just wouldn’t have. You can do very little with a child looking at you with glassy eyes and giggling at every word you say. Send them to the office for a drug test, yes. But the cycle will not easily end there. Support services and rehabs are few and far between where we live and work.

There is no easy answer to a very complicated issue.

 

( ps.I still use money in my teaching. There is nothing to perk up a dull , sleepy class like saying :

“Okay. R5 going if you can answer the question. Properly. Hand up first. Wait until I ask you. “

“Nope. Wrong answer. Good try though. Now we have R3 going. Anyone want R3 ? Take a chance.Come on. R3?”

“Great try. But wrong again. I’ll give you a clue. But then the jackpot goes down to R2. “)

But only during the first week after payday.

After that we play for 50c, 30c and 20c…

 

 

 

Don’t You Dare Compare My Boat To Yours

It is day watshallmecallit, the day after yesterday, the day before tomorrow and the day somewhere in the middle of the year March running into the year April in the thousand day year 2020 of lockdown in South Africa.

Four weeks ago we kicked the tyres of the 3 week lockdown announced by our president and thought:  “Okay. 3 Weeks? We can do it. Not so bad, it can even be fun. Watch Netflix, drink wine, look at the stars, spend quality time with our children. Fun. Quality. Bonding. We could even try that recipe for lemon  merinque Aunty Susarah was famous for in the 1940’s. ”

 

Then the lockdown was extended and almost 5 weeks in , the pie came out looking like this :

 

Also, we have gained weight, our wine is finished ( with sales prohibited until further notice )  and some of us  are starting to wonder why our precious family members have to blink and perform their bodily functions quite so loudly.

 

Home schooling as a teacher has proven to be an eye opener of note.

My daughter in Gr 3 is a typical workaholic pupil. I can just picture her in school : “Yes, Mam, No Mam, How can I do better , Mam ?” A pleasure to teach. Neat. Precise. Educational Gold.

My dear Gr 6  son has shocking work habits.

Because both of them have been boarders since Gr 1 , I have never really supervised homework except on the occasional weekend.

This means that my eldest has mostly had free reign with the way he presents his schoolwork. He is happy to do all the work in pen, even Maths, scratching out mistakes with vigour, leaving huge inky blotches all over each page. Any subject not related to computers is “boring”, “a complete waste of time” or met with exaggerated sighing. “WHAT??? We NEVER have this much work every day. Are you sure you read the instructions correctly???”

“I’m NEVER going to finish this. I’m going to sit here forever. ”

“Tell her to stop writing so loudly. She’s making a funny sound with her pencil!” ( now it’s all his sister’s fault.)

“There’s a fly. It’s bothering me. MOM!!!”

“Any chance of getting a cooldrink over here?” “Snack???” “Sorry, I meant to say please?”

I know there are moms  who will then go to the kitchen and lovingly prepare food looking like this for their offspring :

I AM NOT THAT WOMAN.

There are also people saying things like :

“If you have not come out of this lockdown period having learnt French, Accounting or Danish Embroidery you are a lazy sucker who never had any motivation in the first place.”

or

“Now is the time to exercise. Run laps around your garden. Lift cans of beans up and down for super lean upper arms. Even better, use a sack of potatoes.”

or

“Focus on the good. You have food. You have health. You have children. You have a husband. You have a house. Think of those struggling without these things. ”

and the absolute worst:

“We Are All In The Same Boat.”

No. We are not.

My life is not yours. It wasn’t the same as yours before COVID19 and it certainly isn’t the same during.

My problems and challenges are not the same as yours.

It takes a lot more than a few motivational platitudes to get through a pandemic. To stay put when the walls are driving you crazy. To worry about your school pupils out there somewhere doing who knows what. Not to give in to anxiety crawling in your stomach. And for me personally , to not give in to that old feeling of desperation making me want pull the covers over my head and sleep until this is all over.

In Afrikaans we have a saying :

“Elke Huis Het Sy Kruis.”

It means that every house has a burden to carry.

Let us not forget that a house does not always equal peace. Having a partner in life does not always equal bliss. Having hours and hours of free time  NEVER equals happiness.

We are all fighting our own demons. And those demons, confined to four walls for weeks on end are alive and well, thank you very much.

The answer is BALANCE.  Some work, some stress, some fun, some free time.

Some time inside, some time walking the streets looking for the perfect pair of jeans.

Some time spent with those we love, some time spent apart.

And before I start to sound like Ecclesiastes, let me leave this post with these words :

 

KEEP ROWING, MICHAEL.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Questions to the Answers We Carry

(image from https://www.saatchiart.com/paintings/abstract-expressionism/portrait?page=110)

I lost my mom when I was 16 weeks pregnant with her first grandchild.

She was 68 years old. I was 38.

The phone call came at around 17h00 on Tuesday, the 21st of August,  2007. I was in the middle of a row with my new farmer husband. We had been married for 4 months at the time and we were bashing out this altered reality called “being married after being single forever”.

I was also pregnant. Irritated, nauseous, tired all the time. Frustrated with farm life and especially frustrated with every single thing ( yes okay, shopping ) being so very far away. More than 125km away actually. Spoilt much?

My father had been on a business trip and he arrived home on that night to find the house lights on and the dogs barking furiously. He jumped over the wall to find my mom  in their bedroom. She had suffered a heart attack.

The last person who saw her alive was the cleaning services lady who said goodbye to mom at around 16hoo on the Monday afternoon. We still don’t know if she died shortly after that on the Monday or if it happened on the Tuesday.

New husband and me had driven to East London on the Friday before, the 17th of August, to celebrate her birthday.

On the Sunday we said goodbye to mom in the parking lot of a shopping center, her with new shoes in hand. Mom loved shoes. She always said her feet were the one part of her that never gained weight !

I didn’t know it was the last time. Because we never know, do we?

My relationship with my mother was complicated. Even though we loved each other furiously, we could get into flaming arguments.

I was a nose-in-the-air brat as a child, a moody, depressed teenager, a sociophobic young adult.  She suffered from untreated depression and anxiety. Self medicating with a destructive lifestyle. We were just too much alike, each looking toward the other for rescuing.

And she had this thing with beauty. Hair, weight, face. The first question she ever asked about a person was “How pretty is she?” And with mom, pretty enough meant marriage material. Marriage was her ultimate goal for all four of her daughters. Because we needed “someone to take care of us”. 1960’s Bride that she was!

I was placed on my first diet at age 9. My weight continued to be an issue with her up until the day she died. My hair was another issue. Especially in High School when I kept on perming it and then combed it up to stand as high as possible on my head, spraying it with hairspray 4 times a day. I wanted to look like Bonny Tyler so badly!

O Dear Bonnie. I still love that hair. I mean just look at the volume on top?

Now that I’m a parent myself, I sometimes feel overwhelmed with guilt for what I put my mother through.

But the coin still flips some days when I feel such a surge of anger towards her.  She left me when I needed her the most. She didn’t take care of her health the way she should have after a heart valve replacement 7 years before her death. There was a packet of aspirin lying on her bedside table that she was not supposed to take with Warfrin, her blood thinning medication. Why then did she not listen to instructions from her doctor?

She planted a seed of self doubt in my head that’s taken me 50 years to eradicate. I can look at myself in the mirror some days and see a reasonably attractive woman there. I can also look in the same mirror and feel self hatred like black syrup settling in my stomach.

I’m over my hair issue. It’s super short, super blond and I have made peace with it!!! Amen.

I’m (kind of ) happy with my body, even though I’m on the wrong end of plus sized. It’s become fun to see how I can dress my shape so that it looks presentable and funky-ish.

( Yes, okay, as funky as a 51 year old can be)

One of my pupils wrote in an essay a while back :

“I’m a big girl. But that’s okay. I have a teacher, Mrs O , and she doesn’t have an issue with her fatness.”

There is a huge opportunity here. I can use the hurts and turn them into lessons.

Not just lessons for me, lessons for the many, many teenage girls in my classes battling with yup, you guessed it : weight issues, hair issues, “I’m not pretty” issues.

I often repeat “Don’t play the blame game !” with my kids. Because to blame means to shift responsibility onto another person’s shoulders. It means to give up control. I blamed mom for many years. It got me absolutely nowhere.

What is the measure of our successful “growing up” after all?

It is to understand that our parents were human.

It is to remember that they tried.

It is to forgive them and forgive ourselves as we were with them.

Ultimately, it is to keep the lessons and to leave the anger behind.

Love you, Ma.

 

 

Come Lie On My Couch So We Can Get Into Some C&T

Once upon a time war looked like this :

( https://www.artranked.com/topic/Ancient+War )

War was about strength, speed, brute force. Strategically planning where to fight the battle, where to plant the spear, how to use your shield.  The battle was head on, mostly male and I can bet you, none of these guys were thinking “Why am I coughing???”

It is Day 21 ( -ish ) of Lockdown in South Africa.

Today, war looks like this :

A Catholic priest preaches to photos of the faithful in Brazil.

Image: REUTERS/Rodolfo Buhrer

 

Also, war looks like this :

A customer facing bare aisles at a Sainsbury’s store in Harpenden, UK. 

Image: REUTERS/Peter Cziborra

The epicenter of this war is here :

This war is about mind power.

South Africa  has some of the most stringent lockdown restrictions in the world – no jogging outside, no sales of alcohol or cigarettes, no dog-walking, no leaving home except for essential trips and prison or heavy fines for law-breaking.

Deprived of social contact, deprived of the choice to leave our homes ( except for essential trips) , deprived of the certainty that there is an end in sight, our mind power is being tested like never before.

We are being bombarded with bad news and questions.

To mask or not to mask? To hand glove or not to hand glove? Why did Mr X get infected if he never had any contact with  a sick person, never left his home and diligently washed his hands? Why is the number of infections climbing with all the precautions in place?

Also creeping up on us is the worry of not receiving our monthly salaries.

As a teacher it threatens to unglue my mind if I hear parents say they are not willing to pay school fees at the moment because teachers are “sitting at home having a holiday”.

A school is a year based institution.  School grounds still have to be maintained. Because you don’t want little Sally to come back to a cobweb filled classroom, now do you? Security staff are still working, behind the scenes planning is going full steam ahead. A school is not a Kentucky Drive Thru. Okay, you don’t have burgers today? In that case, I’m not paying for my chicken wrap. So there.

I can promise you, we WILL make up teaching time lost, we WILL be sacrificing any further school holidays and we most definitely WILL catch up. Because that is what we teachers do. We get the job done. At whatever cost.

In the meantime, how we THINK will eventually determine how well we survive the restrictions placed on our lives by COVID 19.

Cognitive Therapy is based on the idea that how we think (cognition), how we feel (emotion) and how we act (behavior) all work together.  Specifically, our thoughts determine our feelings and our behavior.

Albert Ellis ( 1957, 1962 ) proposed that certain irrational or incorrect “thought errors” determine our mind health or general coping skills when faced with difficulty.

These “thought errors” include :

• The idea that one should be thoroughly competent at everything.

• The idea that it is catastrophic when things are not the way you want them to be.

• The idea that people have no control over their happiness.

• The idea that you need someone stronger than yourself to be dependent on.

• The idea that your past history greatly influences your present life.

• The idea that there is a perfect solution to human problems, and it’s a disaster if you don’t find it.

CT aims to change these thinking errors to more realistic thoughts.

From my own CT experience, I held onto quite a few errors in thinking.

“Nobody likes me”  ( age 13 )

“If I leave this guy, I will never find another boyfriend” ( age 19-28 )

“Things will never change” ( age 18 – 44!!! )

CT challenged these with :

Nobody likes me . Really? Not a single person on earth likes you?

If I leave this guy, I will never find another boyfriend. Really? Have you looked in the mirror lately? What is there about you that is not to like or love?

Things will never change. Never? Never is a pretty long time. How can you predict the future?

How can we use CT in our current situation?

Maybe we are thinking :

– This will never end.

– I’m going to lose it if I have to stay in this house until September.

– How will I pay off my debt with no salary?

– My children are driving me nuts . They think I’ve become a snack machine.

– I miss things:  Shopping.

                            Having a braai ( barbeque ) somewhere (that is not at my own house) .

                            Having a meal somewhere beautiful ( that is not my own house).

                            Having a proper haircut.

                            Being on the beach.

                            Hugging people.

                            Attending a festival.

                            Attending a music concert.

                            That happy-tired feeling after a day’s teaching.

And Mr Albert Ellis would say :

Never? You sure?

September? Any proof that it will go on till then?

Banks will make arrangements. Everybody will be in the same boat.

My children are healthy.

It’s okay to miss things. Just imagine how wonderful it will be to do all those things again.

And you will. 

6 CM Revisited

There’s a truck coming towards me. I speed up, stepping on the accelerator. Going at 170 km an hour , I wait until the truck is just about 10 meters away from me on the highway. I turn the steering wheel 6 cm to the right. Just enough to put my car directly in front of the truck’s wheels.

Silence.

Relief.

…It’s over.

When my depression was at it’s worst, this scenario played through my head many, many times.

Such a small decision to be made. 6 cm. Turn to the right. Over. Done.

 

We are approaching the two week mark of a three week lockdown in South Africa.

Studies show that depression and anxiety has increased worldwide.

“The 21-day lockdown may sound like a short period of time, but isolation can lead to increased levels of anxiety and depression, and feelings of fear, agitation, anger, loss, and loneliness, says clinical psychologist Dessy Tzoneva.

Dr Colinda Linde, a clinical psychologist in Johannesburg, said that the terminology alone strikes fear among individuals.

“There’s a good reason the term lockdown makes us feel so powerless and trapped; it’s a term commonly used in prisons, where the inhabitants are in that position,” says Linde.

Linde explained that “no one wants to feel they have no choice, and all of these factors contribute to a general level of discomfort and unhappiness in a situation like this”.”

(https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-04-03-the-impact-of-the-nationwide-lockdown-on-mental-health/)

“The coronavirus crisis and the restrictive measures that many countries are taking to contain the outbreak can have a negative impact on people’s mental health and well-being, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned.

“Isolation, physical distancing, the closure of schools and workplaces are challenges that affect us, and it is natural to feel stress, anxiety, fear and loneliness at this time,” the director of the European branch of the WHO, Hans Kluge, said on 26 March.” 

(https://euobserver.com/coronavirus/147903)

 

If you look at the image of the depressed brain vs the normal brain there is less neural activity in the depressed brain.

Alex Korb ( https://www.know-stress-zone.com/depressed-brain-vs-normal.html) brilliantly explains the depressed brain vs normal brain this way:

“So why do tornadoes happen in Oklahoma but not in New York? Because conditions are just right — the flatness of the land, temperature changes, humidity, and wind direction and speed. But there’s nothing wrong with Oklahoma.

The same is true of your brain. In depression, there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the brain. It’s simply that the particular tuning of neural circuits creates the tendency toward a pattern of depression. It has to do with the way the brain deals with stress, planning, habits, decision making, and a dozen other things — the dynamic interaction of those circuits. And once the pattern starts to form, it causes dozens of tiny changes throughout the brain that create a downward spiral.”

As we know, depression is hereditary.

I still remember my grandmother sitting on the same chair every day, handbag on her lap. Crying.

My mother, self medicating with whatever she could find to keep the shadows away.

And now … me.

I’ve been well for years with the correct medication at the correct dosage.

Also, through re-programming my thinking with cognitive therapy.

At the moment I’m finding things tough. It’s like a mental marathon in my head, repeating affirming thoughts :

• we WILL get through this ( yes, but…)
• things WILL go back to normal ( yes, but...)
• We are SAFE at home, we are doing our part ( yes, but…)
• MANY people are worse off than me ( yes, but...)
• The world will change, but change can be great ( yes, but…)
• I am not alone ( yes, but...)
• I don’t have to be in control…let that Sh*t go! ( yes, I know, but…!!!!)

 

 

 

YES.

No buts.