Excellent is not good enough

I'm one of those persons that could call themselves a perfectionist, although I don't like to admit it. However, now I write it down in black and white. Yes, dear reader, Debz is a perfectionist. 

 

I think I can truly say that I've been a perfectionist all my life. When I was younger, I had this thing with my crayons for example: they had to be ordered exactly as the first time I'd used them, i.e. in the same order and with the print on the crayons facing me. Also, from the very first exams that I did, I strived to get a perfect score. And the funny thing is that I sometimes succeeded in getting that perfect score, even at high school and university for some subjects.

However, it's not always easy to be a perfectionist. People at school often made fun of me because I got good grades. And I was too weak to defend myself. I'll never be able to forgive those people who bullied me for that reason, because the bullying contributed to me being a borderliner. Still, now I'm a university student, and I'm no longer being bullied because I get good grades. In fact, quite the opposite is true. My university teachers say things like "you're an excellent student", "you got an impressive score" and stuff like that. That gives me the courage to go on like this, and it makes up for all the bullying at high school. 

Sometimes I envy those people that are happy with a 6 (out of 10). They surely have a life that is a whole lot easier than mine. Because, to be honest, sometimes even excellent is not good enough. I always study hard, and as a true perfectionist, I don't skip anything. Every detail is as important as the rest. But if I don't get a (nearly) perfect score, I know that there is room for improvement, although recently I've been less hard on myself. I know that a 9 is excellent at university level. I just don't understand why people are so happy with low grades. I mean, you only go to university once, it's your one and only chance to prove what you're worth. And I think that employers should have a look at people's grades before they hire someone. High grades can give an employer the idea that their future employee is willing to work very hard. At least, I hope that is what the employer deduces from his future employee's high grades.

Am I too hard on myself when I say that sometimes, excellent is not good enough? I know that I'm a demanding person, and I'll probably be a very demanding teacher if I can achieve that career, but does that make me a bad person? I don't think so. I think perfectionism isn't necessarily bad, but it does make your life more difficult because you're not easily satisfied. It costs a lot of effort, but I can guarantee you, getting a good grade makes up for all the effort I put into studying. And yes, I'm suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but even that has its positive sides. The question is at what cost... 

Take-home message: be as good as you can possibly be! Go to the extremes, and be proud of yourself when you achieve the goal you set yourself. You will probably never be absolutely 100% perfect, and that's a difficult message I send to myself in particular. But that doesn't take away that I can at least try to be as perfect as possible, right? 
 
   

The naked truth

Have you ever wondered what people who hear voices look like? Do they look confused, with a wild look in their eyes? Do they look unkempt and dishevelled? Well, let me tell you one thing: it doesn't work like that. It could be anyone, even your best friend or one of your neighbours. Hell, do I look confused, unkempt and/or dishevelled? For yes, I am one of those persons that hear voices every once in a while...

It's been a while, but I've had times in my life in which I had to deal with those terrible voices on a daily basis. I can't remember exactly when I heard them for the first time - it must have been about 12 years ago - but I can tell you that I was quite surprised, especially because that voice spoke to me in English, and not in Flemish, as would have been more likely. It's just that I thought that voices used to be something like dreams, and I hardly ever dream in a foreign language. But no, Male - that's his name, incredible though it may seem - spoke to me in English. Initially it was just Male, and he pretended to be my best friend. And I fell for it, because I felt extremely lonely at that moment. I was already in trouble and as far as I can remember I was already undergoing treatment. Read: I was already in that phase in my life in which I'd started cutting myself, and believe me, I couldn't talk about the cutting itself, let alone about that prominent voice I heard. I didn't even try to talk about it initially, because I already knew that there was only a slight possibility that anyone would understand the embarrassing situation I was in...

Eventually, I decided that it'd be better if somebody knew about it, so I told my shrink. She didn't seem to be surprised at all, as if she already knew, but no further attention was dedicated to the subject. Only later, when I went back to the first psychiatric clinic I'd ever visited, did I talk about it again, and this psychiatrist seemed to take me and my problem seriously. But by then the situation had deteriorated a lot. Male was extremely friendly and obliging in the beginning, as in for example helping to pull me through those terrifying moments in which I had to undergo this pain deep inside of me. He told me exactly where and how I had to cut myself, so as not to make things worse. He was there when I needed someone to talk to, because my friends had already let me down and I couldn't fall back on my family for support. However, after a while, he became my worst enemy. I wanted to stop cutting myself, but I just couldn't because of him. He egged me on to do bad things, including hurting other people. Luckily, I've never hurt anyone else but myself, and I'm planning to keep it like that.

And then... what? Back in the clinic, I immediately received an injection because Male was teasing me so badly that the pain was unbearable. I'd discovered that he only wanted one thing: my death, but only after a whole lot of suffering. The injections were a relief, although I felt very weak afterwards. I was drowsy and extremely tired. I couldn't even sit up to eat. The injections weren't the solution, they were only good for an immediate intervention in times of crisis. So I started taking some pills...

 And some more pills...

And some more...

Some of these anti-psychotic meds did what they had to do, i.e. make the voices shut up, but Male never disappeared completely. I could feel his threatening presence, even if he didn't speak to me. And what's even worse, after a while, it was not just Male anymore. First I heard a whole lot of other disturbing voices besides Male, but none of these voices was coherent or told me their name. Only some time later did one of them introduce himself as Moses. While Male seems to be an adult already, running in his thirties or perhaps forties, Moses is still a teenager, and an irritating one, if you ask me. He's always bullying me and getting at me in a rude and disturbing way. It's strange, however, that neither of them seems to age. In the 12 years that have past, they haven't changed. I especially noticed this with Moses who was a teenager 12 years ago and still is that same annoying, horrible, teasing teenager...


Sometimes I had large conversations, especially with Male, but sometimes with the two of them, and in some cases I wrote these conversations as accurately as possible down on my computer. I initially wanted to copy one of these conversations in this blog entry, but I've decided not to do so, because it is in fact quite risky to do so, in the sense that I'm already quite vulnerable by writing about the voices, and I don't think they would approve of me copying one of our conversations into this entry. That's just too personal. 

You may want to know what exactly it was that we were talking about. Well, mostly we tried to reach a compromise. I wanted them to leave me alone, because they were getting at me and they told me I was worthless and stuff like that, and at the same time they wanted to encourage me to do bad things. Male was extremely mad at me because I took the pills I had to take. He begged me in more than one occasion to stop taking them, because they made him ill. Fair enough. But if I didn't take them, I was even more vulnerable to their dominance. So I took them, although they didn't make the voices disappear completely. There were periods in my life in which I stopped taking the pills, because I thought I could handle it alone. Then, however, I came up against the naked truth: the voices were on their way to kill me. They were far more powerful if I didn't take my meds. And even if I took those pills, they still could influence me and my thoughts. 

Luckily, some four years ago, my former psychiatrist wanted to change the medication drastically because I was extremely psychotic: not only did I hear voices but I was constantly aware of the fact that the whole world was keeping an eye on me - mistrust and paranoia, indeed. Anyway, that change in medication turned out to be a huge improvement. Since then I can count the situations in which I've been confronted with Male and Moses on one hand. I have to admit though that I'm quite afraid for repercussions now. They don't like exposure. I wasn't allowed to talk about them with my shrink. Still, I did talk about them, but then I had to accept the fact that they wanted revenge. I don't know what they're going to do now that I write about them on my blog, but I think it's high time that people knew that hearing voices isn't so weird or rare as you might think. Many people have this problem, and again, as with my post about self-harm, I want to get rid of a big taboo. People who hear voices aren't mad or insane. They do have a problem, there's no misunderstanding about that, but if you are lucky to have a good psychiatrist who prescribes you the necessary pills, you can start to live with the fact that you hear voices every once in a while. 

Drawing made in November 2004 with a central role for self-destruction, voices and mistrust.

I'm not a lesser human being because I have this problem of hearing voices. I'm just as human as you are, dear reader, but I think this problem can also serve me well. I think that maybe, I could help people who have the same problem, as a hands-on expert. That's what I hope to achieve in the long term. For now, I want to emphasise that I live quite a normal life with the medication I have to take on a daily basis. However, I'm not always happy with this situation, especially because the pills have a lot of annoying side effects, the most important ones being fatigue and concentration problems. That makes it sometimes hard to study, but if I have to choose between being tired or being psychotic, the choice is not that hard. Still, I know it's going to be much more difficult when I have a job or, as I'm planning to, an internship. However, let's first try to write an MA thesis, and then we'll see... :)


PS: As you probably know, I'm keen on numbers, but I couldn't find any good references when it comes to the amount of people that hear voices in the Netherlands. Worldwide, however, some 4 to 10% of the population are estimated to have the problem of hearing voices, which is quite a lot, I think. I can only suggest one thing to those people who have had this experience: talk about it, although I understand that it's extremely difficult when the voices prohibit this. You're not alone... One song that helps me to work off the stress that goes together with hearing voices is Linkin Park's Papercut. Feel free to look up the lyrics if you want to get the message while listening to this song...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

I am I, you are you, and together we are two

I'm asking myself why people often judge others on the characteristics that make them different from the rest of the world's population. As a matter of fact, I grew up in a pretty conservative family, and everything that only slightly deviated from what my parents considered to be normal was immediately and irreversibly abnormal and weird. And I can guarantee you that initially it wasn't easy to break with my family's habits and to start thinking for myself, but I think that in the end I've at least partly succeeded in doing so.

I've always wondered why the people in the world look so different from each other, while there seems to be less variation among animals. I mean, you have several types of dogs for example, but almost every labrador looks the same. The same counts - even more - for cows, they all look so much alike - or am I thinking too simply now? We, people, also have different races, but within those races there are still many subdivisions. Not every Asian looks the same, for example, although I've been told that people belonging to a specific race cannot distinguish between a group of people from another race. I cannot absolutely confirm these findings, although I have to admit that some Afro-Americans and Asians have lots of characteristics in common, but still I can distinguish people within a group. 

Unfortunately, race is one of the most important factors when it comes to discrimination. And I don't like that, not at all, especially because some of the people around me tend to discriminate foreigners, and when I catch myself doing or thinking the same, I always get extremely angry with myself and I feel embarrassed, because it doesn't make sense to discriminate people because of the colour of their skin, and in fact, to discriminate people in general.

This post is about discrimination. Some of you will probably think this is a boring topic, but I think it's high time that people started to be more friendly and tolerant towards people that turn out to be different from the majority.

History hasn't been kind to a few specific races. Especially people with a dark skin have suffered more discrimination than other races. And the people with a white skin were always in charge and in powerful positions. Although history is not my strong suit, I know that the original inhabitants of the Americas were erradicated by white Europeans and that slave ships came from Africa to import workers who could do the hard labour that the whites didn't want to do themselves. Why do white people think they're superior because of the colour of their skin? Why couldn't it be the other way around? I feel very ashamed that people of my race have done - and still do - such terrible things. 

Another thing that triggers discrimination is religion. Let's think of the erradication of the Jews in WWII, of the persecution of Christians in communist countries such as China, or of the fact that all Muslims are seen as terrorists nowadays. I don't approve of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 or of Al-Qaeda and the suicide attacks in countries such as Afghanistan or Iraq, but I think we should try to give Muslims a chance, that is, if they are willing to adapt to living in a non-Islamic country. To be honest, I'm also suspicious of Muslims, especially when I see women in burkah or men in traditional clothing. I immediately deduce from their looks that they'll be radical Muslims. But as a Christian I shouldn't judge people on their looks. However, it is difficult, especially because some of my family members are pure and very stubborn racists when it comes to religion or skin colour. 

Discrimination is not limited to race and religion. It can still appear in other forms. Some groups of people have to deal with so many preconceptions that it's just not fair. Think of homosexual people. I have quite a few friends who prefer a partner from the same gender, so what?! What makes these people "abnormal", as some people - including some of my family members - might call them? I just don't get it. Why can't these people marry the person they love? Why can't they have children? Luckily, in some countries such as the Netherlands, homosexuals can actually get married and have children, but in the majority of the world a gay marriage is still a big taboo. And even in the Netherlands it's not always easy for homosexuals to walk hand in hand, or to kiss each other in public. In some countries, it's even dangerous to be honest about your sexual inclination. I've read on the Internet that Brazil is the most dangerous country for gay people. However, we don't have to look that far to see violence against homosexuals. In my home country - Belgium - there has recently been a lot of violence against homosexuals in the capital. This act of violence shows that homophobia is a menacing threat for the freedom of sexual inclination. 

Also, women are sometimes discriminated on the shop floor. They often do the same job as their male colleagues, but earn less money. In the case of top jobs, men rule. In many countries, we still have to wait to see the first female president, as in the USA or France, to only name two of the most powerful countries of the world. Therefore it was a big surprise when Dilma Rousseff was chosen as the first female president of Brasil. It actually made me very happy and proud, because it's a big step forward in my humble opinion.

And then, to conclude, I want to ask your attention for the minority group to which I belong, that is to say, the group of psychiatric patients. Do we get discriminated? Actually yes, we do, especially on the shop floor. See, the problem is that one day, I hope to graduate and find a job that suits me well. But what will my future employer say or think when (s)he sees that I've been studying for almost ten years? They'll probably get to their conclusions: "something didn't work well for this person, so we'd better don't hire her". And you'll see me standing there, with my BA and (probably) MA certificate cum laude and all my beautiful grades, but without a job :(
Another example: I once wanted to be a PhD student, but there are only a few PhD positions available and therefore there is a lot of competition between students. In normal circumstances, a PhD student dedicates 4 years to his/her investigation. For me that would not be sufficient. I just need more time because of the side effects of the meds I'm taking and because of my reduced energy level. So when I realised that there were new cutbacks here at the university of Leiden, I got to my own conclusions: I'll never be a PhD student, much as I'd like to be one, because of the fact that there will always be people who are healthier than me and are thus better candidates.


Anyway, I'd like to make you aware of the fact that discrimination is spreading worldwide and seems to grow every day. Every single thing that makes you different from the standard human being is a reason to be discriminated. I hope that you catch yourself when you are thinking that somebody is a lesser human being because of some reason or other. I'll try to do the same...

To my two beautiful princesses...

Inspired by Randy's post about his new-born nephew (June 3rd) I want to spend some time to tell you about the two most beautiful princesses in the world. I already mentioned them in an earlier post and I posted recent pictures of them there, but I have to share this with you, dear reader: my nieces Indra and Kyana mean the world to me. I couldn't imagine life without them. October 3rd, 2004 and August 6th, 2007 were days that changed my life completely and irrevocably. 

Indra, 3-10-2004

Kyana, 6-8-2007

Only in a few years' time will Indra and Kyana be able to read this post, but I want to write to them now as if they could read this post already. However, let me first post a few more pictures. I've got loads and loads of cute baby pictures, but I'll have to make up my mind and choose only a few, otherwise this post will go on forever :D

Indra, year 1

Kyana, year 1

Dear Indra, 

I'll write to you in purple, because I know that's your favourite colour. Life wasn't easy for me at the time you were born, but when your mom told me that she was pregnant, I was in seventh heaven. I immediately bought a diary and started writing to you. I hope your mom didn't throw it away so you can read it one day. I put pictures in it and I wrote to you, although words could not express what I felt and not knowing whether you would be a girl or a boy. And then that special, long-awaited day came. I moved heaven and earth to get to the hospital as soon as I could, because everything started at 11PM on October, 2nd, and I was still in Leiden, so I could only get on a train to Belgium the day after. I was so proud and thankful to see you, you were a gorgeous little lady :)    

We don't see each other much - once a month - but my love for you grows stronger every day, even though I live so far away from you. I love playing with you and sharing beautiful moments with you, and you have to know that I'm very proud of you. I hope that our bond remains as strong as it is right now, because that, my girl, is priceless. 
I love you so much! In the meantime, you're already a big girl, a young lady actually. I hope you won't forget that, although I'm far away, I love you so very much.    

Indra, years 2 and 3

Dear Kyana,
as pink is by far your favourite colour, I'll write to you in pink, ok? I remember the day that you were born vividly. I was in Leiden, and my mom and dad - the grandparents that you love so much - were here too, and then we received that phone call. I still had to go to the pharmacy to pick up my meds, and they were working so slowly, so I said to them: "My sister is having her baby right now and I should leave for Belgium as soon as possible". That helped :) When we arrived in Belgium and went to pick up your sister at my aunt's house, you were still on your way. And then, around 6PM, we got that phone call: Indra got herself a cute, little sister! I lifted Indra up and we did a little dance while I repeated to her: "You've got a little sister!" Then we went to the hospital to see you. You know what your dad said when you were just a few hours old? He said that you would be a very special girl - in the sense of naughty but still in a positive sense (I don't know the English word and my dictionary only translates it for boys) - and guess what, he was right! You already outdo your sister in so many ways, and you liked to tease her from the moment you were old enough. But that's sometimes big fun! I know you love me, and I hope you know I love you too. I also know that you miss me, and that you don't really understand yet why I live so far away. But girly, not a single book in the world is thick enough to write in and describe my love for you. Please know that your auntie Debz loves you and will always love you, no matter what happens. I'm proud of you, because you're such a special little lady. 
 

Kyana, years 2 and 3

Dear reader,
maybe you haven't noticed, but I'm the proudest aunt in the entire world :) I love my two beautiful princesses from the bottom of my heart. Life wouldn't be the same anymore if something should happen to one of them. I would even give my life for them, honestly. They're precious and special, each with their own specific qualities. I hope I don't spoil them too much, but as an aunt I have the right to do that ;) I'd like to spend more time with them, but as I'm living in a different country, it's not always easy to come over more often, especially because I'm still studying and I have to work hard to finish my studies. I hope I can teach them many things, and I hope that they will turn out as eager as I am to learn a lot about different people, different cultures, different languages... 
I don't envy them, because I think they won't have an easy life. They are still growing up, and I notice that the world already expects so much from them. I hope I will live long enough to see them grow up, study, find a partner and eventually have their own children. I wish them all the best. 

I love you, Indra and Kyana! You really are two princesses, you know! I hope I will never disappoint you. I'll always try to support you, no matter what choices in life you make. 


Your proud auntie Debz
 

 

 PS: I have this Spanish song that I wanted to dedicate to the two of you. One day I'll teach you girls Spanish, and then you will be able to sing along. Hope you enjoy the song...