From Pelican to Prince: Day two

Becoming a big girl means that you take certain decisions in your life and that you give your life a little swing. Also, you take big steps when it comes to becoming independent. Yesterday was a suitable example of my newly required independence: I finally received the keys of my very first own appartement. 

After having lived nearly 14 years in a three by four student's room, it was about time that I got my own place and left the Pelikaanhof, a student's flat in the centre of Leiden. I've always loved living there, fair enough, but now I'm already 33 and sometimes I feel like I'm the babysitter of my housemates. Well, not exactly, I might be exaggerating somehow, but my youngest housemate is only 19 years old! Also, they expect me to fix things when there's something not working properly or something has to be done. What's more, they are all still studying, while I'm teaching language classes. Consequently they have other priorities than me. Sometimes they irritate me and sometimes I might be a source of irritation for them. At least, I think that's how it works. 

I think it will be hard for me not to share my bathroom or kitchen with anyone anymore! NOT! It will be hard to say goodbye to my twelve square metres. NOT! It will be uncomfortable to have SPACE to live in, instead of having to crawl between furniture, backpacks, plastic bags with books and notebooks. NOT! 

Not my room, by the way ;)

So yesterday I got the keys! A moment full of magic! I was so proud! As I had other obligations, I couldn't really enjoy the first hours of new inhabitant of the Prinsenhoek in my appartement, I only arrived there in the evening. I moved some of the cardboard boxes full of books and some personal stuff, and then late at night, I went there to spend the night. It may sound a little strange, I mean, it was still empty, completely empty, but I had to be there early in the morning, because I expected a lot of special deliveries, and as they weren't specific as to when they would deliver the products, I had to be available at my appartement the entire day. While I was waiting for the deliveries to arrive, I started to prepare the walls for painting. All day long, it was hectic at the Prinsenhoek, but in a positive sense. As the entire building is new, I'm not the only inhabitant moving in. I'm very curious to get to know my neighbours, but until now, nobody was home. 

So now, after having taken a shower and having rinsed all the dust from my face and arms, I'm back at my student's room in the Pelikaanhof. Tired but happy and content from the work that I've done today. I'm actually waiting for my parents to arrive. They were so kind to offer me their help during the coming weekend. We're going to paint the walls and put laminate on the floor. We'll see how far we'll get. In any case, I hope to move over as fast as possible. Now that I've been in my appartement the entire day, I've experienced the taste of independence! 

Big girl

I can hardly believe that last Thursday, May 5th, it was exactly 7 months ago that I left the psychiatric clinic in The Hague. 7 months ago, I came back home after an intensive treatment at the CIB that took me almost a year and that resulted in a whole new Debz. I can proudly say that I'm a big girl now.

Yes, it's been - and it still is! - tough and no, it hasn't always been easy or obvious for me. I've been and I'm actually still in a constant fight with myself and especially with the ill part of me, the part that wants to destroy the person that I am and everything and everyone that happens to pass by in my life. The transition an sich was also kind of hard: first I was in an institution with 24/7 care, to end up back home with three quarters of an hour per week with my psychologist, half an hour of running therapy and half an hour of creative therapy every two weeks, this in combination with two house visits a week from the nurses of a so-called FACT-team (Flexible Assertive Community Treatment, whatever that exactly entails...). From that moment on, I had to find a purpose in life and I had to start looking for meaningful activities. I can assure you that that wasn't an easy target. As I'd always felt good while teaching languages, I decided to take up giving private lessons. That turned out te be a good shot! At this moment, I'm teaching Dutch to native Portuguese speakers and Spanish to a native Dutch speaker. I'm having so much fun while teaching, I get satisfaction from it and I notice that my students make progress, although sometimes not as much as I'd like to. Still, even though I can't be a full-time teacher, as much as I'd like to, I'm happy with those 5 hours a week. I do regret that I can't be in front of an entire class, but private lessons also have an advantage: you can invest more time to tackle your students' flaws and skip extra exercises when your student has few problems with a specific topic. 

5 hours of private lessons a week means that there is still much time left, too much to be honest. Of course I have to prepare all those lessons, but still, I have enough empty hours left in a week. So I decided to pick up my karate lessons once again. As you probably know, I wanted to take up karate when I was an 8-year-old girl. However, my parents didn't feel like it. They thought it was "for boys". So instead of taking up karate, I had to be happy with gymnastics and trampoline jumping. I never really liked it though, and after a serious injury, when I broke my elbow, my feelings towards this quite dangerous hobby only got worse. When I was 14, I finally made  up my mind and decided to quit. When I took up karate two years ago, I felt incredibly glad that I could make up for the past. Finally I did something that I'd always wanted, finally I was being nice for myself! I immediately knew that I wanted to go on with this karate project. And I'm stil practicing it, even though I almost lost a year while I was admitted at the CIB. At this moment I even notice that I'm considering it a very important activity in my life. It's not just karate training anymore, no! I'm training to obtain the yellow belt. Although I won't get it until over a year, I do notice that I admire the discipline that our Senseis and most of my fellow karatekas have. I also try to put everything that I have in it, and I try to display some discipline. I take the remarks of the Senseis into consideration and try to be a better karateka every training. Learning is important, making mistakes is part of the deal. 

Being a big girl also means that I can create some sort of  healthy gap in the relationship between me and other people because, as me and my psychologist are discussing during almost every session, I'm too dependent on others in order to find my luck in life. My life depends on others, which is not okay for a 33-year-old grown woman. Especially the bond between me and my mother cannot be considered to be healthy. We are too close. That's when my psychologist and I discuss that I should make my own choices in life. It starts small but will eventually end up with something big, and honestly, I really don't want this, I loathe the idea already, but... it will be necessary if I ever want to be capable of living my own life. Actually, last week was one - actually the very first! - moment in which I made a decision, knowing that my mom wouldn't like it. I cut my hair - well, let's say that the hairdresser did it ;) - knowing that my mom would have her own ideas of this crazy, impulsive action. And guess what, she did! But right now, Debz is happy. Because Debz showed that she can be a big girl.