Everything Is Alright: My Journey with OCD

“I’m sick of the things I do when I’m nervous, like cleaning the oven or checking my tires. Or counting the number of tiles in the ceiling. Head for the hills, the kitchen’s on fire! I used to rely on self-medication. I guess I still do that from time to time. But I’m getting better at fighting the future. ‘Someday you’ll be fine.’ Yes, I’ll be just fine.” –Motion City Soundtrack, “Everything Is Alright”

Trigger warning: Mental health, Obsessive-compulsive disorder

I haven’t written anything on this blog for a very long time, but after decades of suffering with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), I think this particular one is a long time coming. It’s not something that is ever really easy to talk about, especially when there’s still so much stigma around most mental illnesses. However, I think that’s all the more reason to talk about something – to increase awareness and understanding and try to decrease stigma. You can’t get rid of stigma if you contribute to it by avoiding it, right? OCD is such a massive part of my everyday life and who I am that I think it’s something that I need to be more open about. A lot of people know I’m neurotic, but they don’t know the extent of it because I have only given glimpses into some things before. I’ve seen some public figures talking about it more recently, which is helpful to both raise awareness and to make those of us with it feel less alone. People have come to learn a lot more about autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in recent years, but most people don’t know as much about OCD unless they have firsthand experience with it or are very close to someone who has it. You still constantly hear people making jokes about it, like “I love to clean! I’m so OCD!” There are many reasons comments like that are annoying (apart from being grammatically incorrect), but I think most people with OCD would agree that the worst is how it makes light of what is actually a very debilitating condition. I hope that by sharing my experiences with OCD, people will have a better understanding of how it’s more than just ‘liking to clean.’ (Worth noting that I hate cleaning and only do it because my stupid brain tells me I have to – and my place is clean but messy!) I also hope it will give people a better understanding of me because people aren’t always patient or supportive when they don’t understand the significant impact it has every hour of every day.

In order to be diagnosed with OCD, it has to be something that causes significant distress or impairment in your life. People with OCD have unwanted, intrusive thoughts, known as obsessions. The anxiety the obsessions cause leads to compulsions, which can be either physical acts, like washing your hands, or mental acts, like ruminating or repeating words/phrases in your head, to try to relieve the anxiety. This then creates a vicious cycle, going from obsession to anxiety to compulsion to relief and back around again, which feels impossible to break at times. Obsessions and/or compulsions have to take up an hour of your daily life for you to be diagnosed with the disorder. It’s also important to note that OCD is a lifelong condition and is not something that will ever go away or be cured, only treated. It’s still not really known if it’s a nature vs. nurture thing, but in my case, I think it’s a combination of both, as I have at least one extended family member with it but also think there’s an environmental side to it from early childhood experiences, such as illnesses.

I’ve known I have OCD for decades, but I didn’t tell most people about it until recent years when it started to affect me more. I first disclosed it publicly on my entertainment blog a few years ago about it after seeing a stand-up show by a comedian with OCD, but I’ve since made the post private because that wasn’t the appropriate place for it. In the interest of full disclosure, I have never been formally diagnosed with OCD, as the focus is more on treatment than the diagnosis, and I’ve never had a private assessment. However, when I finally sought support from my GP a few years ago during what was probably the worst episode of my life, they agreed that I likely had it. We agreed not to try medication at that time, and I still haven’t taken any, but they told me to refer myself to a local place that does talking therapy through the NHS. The place I referred myself to must have also been very concerned because I was contacted within a couple of days of my referral. I was initially offered self-led online cognitive behavioural therapy where I had weekly check-ins with a support worker for six weeks or so. At the end of that, my support worker was still concerned about my OCD scores being very high/severe. They referred me to therapy with an actual therapist where I was again contacted very quickly for online instant message sessions to do more exposure response prevention. Again, I started those therapy sessions very quickly (within a few weeks), and maxed out the number of sessions I could have under the NHS. The therapy was mostly useful at the time, but when you don’t have someone checking up on you every week after it ends, it can be easy to fall back into some things.

I have a lot of different ‘themes’ (subtypes) of OCD, which have evolved over the years, but I won’t talk about everything to save this from becoming a dissertation since we already know I’m not into the whole brevity thing. I also know that there could be other people reading this who have OCD, and although it is always helpful to know you’re not alone, I’m mindful that talking/hearing about it can be a trigger. As my blogs are pretty much always introspective and personal, this is less about the stuff you can look up online about OCD and is, as the title says, more about my own journey with it and how it’s manifested over the decades I’ve had it.

Image from Reddit

One of the first signs I ever had of OCD was magical thinking, which is the belief that unrelated events are connected because of thoughts or actions and that they can influence other events. When I was around five or six, I would always see ads on TV for St Jude Children’s Research Hospital where they showed children who had lost their hair from cancer. My six-year-old mind then assumed that everyone with little or no hair had cancer, and I was terrified of getting it. At that time, the R.E.M. song “Losing My Religion” was constantly on MTV back when they actually played music. Michael Stipe didn’t have much hair back then, so I thought he had cancer. This caused me to have magical thinking that if I listened to that song (and only that song for some reason, which is lucky for me because “At My Most Beautiful” and “Nightswimming” are two of my all-time favourite songs) after 7pm, I would get cancer. Sounds silly, right? Not to someone with OCD. I would love to say that I’m completely over that particular magical thinking because logically, I do know it’s ridiculous, but the point of OCD is that it’s not logical. There’s always that question of But what if…?. OCD can cause avoidance, and to this day, I still avoid listening to that great song after 7pm ‘just in case.’ I have pretty bad health OCD as it is, which is exactly what it sounds like, and I have to be careful about anything that can trigger it, such as reading things online about any illnesses or people who have them.

My magical thinking has, unfortunately, continued with my other interests in recent years. When Arsenal or England play, I have a sort of reverse psychology compulsion to say, “We’re going to lose,” something I have done since I was a student when I would say, “I’m going to fail” before an exam. It’s not that I don’t have faith in my teams – quite the opposite – or that I’m being pessimistic. I don’t do it to be annoying either. My stupid magical thinking tells me that if I don’t say it, it will happen. It’s something I feel like I have to do just in case it influences the outcome in some weird, cosmic way, and I get too anxious if I don’t do it. The same applies to pre-game rituals (listening to specific playlists) or when I can’t go back to a pub for the rest of the season because we lost a game when I watched it there, when I have to go months before I can wear whatever Arsenal shirt I was wearing when we lost a game, and not having dessert to celebrate winning until the full-time whistle is blown. Footballers have superstitions, and I’ve been told that many of them will throw out their boots when they lose a game and will wear them to the next one if they score and win. I talked to my former therapist about all of this and asked whether these things constitute magical thinking or just superstitions for me. She confirmed that because of the level of distress they cause, they are indeed magical thinking. Obviously losing a football game is a low stakes thing, but it’s one of my more common magical thinking things because my teams play several times a week. Also, similar to my compulsion of saying that we’re going to lose, I sometimes read or hear a random phrase that I get in my head as an earworm and can’t stop thinking about it until I say it, though this is fairly rare and isn’t magical thinking.

Via Reddit

My “Losing My Religion” magical thinking was the main OCD theme in my early years, but in my teenage years, it shifted and started to become more severe. I’m not sure if it was puberty, school stress, significant life changes that I struggled to cope with, world events, or whatever else, but I can remember it being out of control and being acknowledged more in my family. Unfortunately, things were different back then, so we really didn’t know that there was treatment for it. My OCD manifested in various ways in my teens. I had trichotillomania and would pull out my eyelashes, though as with several of my subtypes and compulsions, I didn’t actually know until about three years ago that this was an OCD thing. I still do it sometimes if I’m extremely stressed, but it’s quite rare now. There’s also something called ‘just right’ OCD, and I would have to (and still do have to) have volumes on even numbers or multiples of five because that was the only way that felt just right. Another ‘just right’ thing I did was rewrite envelopes multiple times. Hoarding isn’t really considered OCD anymore because it’s seen as its own thing now, but I would keep bottle caps from my favourite drink (they had jokes on them) and receipts in a container for years. Some of the receipts were kept for sentimental reasons, like remembering the day I bought an album, but I even kept ones from fast food places that I knew I would never want or need again. One of the main things back then was using paper plates, plastic cups, and plastic cutlery. (Sorry, Mother Earth!) I don’t really think I had contamination OCD as a teen, but I didn’t trust that the dishwasher would properly clean dishes and would inspect them at restaurants. I’m not sure when I stopped using the paper and plastic stuff, but apparently I did the same thing when I first moved to England. I completely forgot about it until I was discussing my OCD with my best friend once at the start of the bad episode a few years ago. She told me she didn’t realise I had it before (We can be great at hiding it when we’re with other people!), but then she remembered that I used disposable things when I lived in York. Admittedly, I am still prone to doing this sometimes if I’m not at home where I can wash my dishes myself.

From what I remember of my 20s, my OCD wasn’t quite as bad as it was in my teens. I definitely still had some signs of it, but I don’t think they were quite as severe as a whole. The main one was that I was (and am) afraid getting sick, especially stomach bugs. Emetophobia goes along with the health OCD and has been a constant in my life since I was very little. It’s to the point that I can’t even see it or hear it on TV – I literally close my eyes and cover my ears at the sight/sound of it. Like trichotillomania, I didn’t know that emetophobia was an OCD thing until a couple of years ago, but it makes a lot of sense. (There’s a great episode of John Robins’ How Do You Cope? podcast with actor Tuppence Middleton about OCD and emetophobia that explains it more, and she also wrote a book about it.) As you can imagine, it probably wasn’t the best idea to work in nursing homes in my 20s, but I somehow managed it for four years. Still, I remember that when everyone in the office got a stomach bug once around 2013, I wore a mask (before it was cool!) to try to avoid it. I got laughed at by my colleagues, but I was also the only one who didn’t get it, which only reinforced the idea that this was what needed to be done to prevent getting sick. Alongside that, since I was a young teenager, I would always suck on mints because I somehow thought that it would stop me from getting sick. Many people know I am addicted to mints, and that was the start of it – it’s actually a compulsion that was/is at least partly related to that obsession and phobia.

My early 30s were mostly fine, apart from some of the usual themes turning up. I think I did surprisingly well in South Korea, but personal and world events later in my 30s started causing issues again. First, I had a physically and mentally traumatic knee injury in 2017, which I’ll get more into later. Then COVID happened. When COVID started, I was working insane hours at an already very stressful job where I had some particularly difficult cases that at one point genuinely made me want to do a runner overnight and return to the US. Stress can exacerbate OCD, and between COVID and my job, a relapse was bound to happen. COVID was unavoidable in the news and group chats. It caused me a lot of distress, especially with my health OCD, and made me lose respect for people who weren’t taking it seriously and following the rules. I became obsessed with it, frequently checking the numbers of people dying. I’ve also always struggled working in an office because people would always go in sick. I’ve always been afraid of getting anything anyone else has (and am never convinced when someone tells me they’re not contagious), but COVID made that even worse. Whenever I had to go into the office at my old job, I had sensory overload and became distressed because I was constantly listening for coughing or other COVID symptoms. I eventually left that job and continued to struggle when I had to go into the office for my current job because I was (and am) hyperaware of anyone coughing or sneezing anywhere I go. Not to mention that I was doing home visits at the time, and the homes were not always the nicest places. Thankfully, when my role changed, I got to work from home more, and now I don’t do home visits at all anymore.

The bad OCD episode (which I should really start calling ‘O.C.D.O.D.’ after the new Hives song) came a few years ago during a particularly stressful move and period in my life. I won’t get into all of the details of all of the causes, but the relapse happened suddenly and was severe almost instantly. I quickly reached the point where I knew I needed professional help – something that I had never had before – and finally got the aforementioned therapy. During this period, I had severe contamination OCD, alongside my health OCD. I was also doing a lot of ruminating, which kept me up at night and is still a significant issue to this day. I thought everything would calm down once I was moved and settled in my place, but shortly after I moved into my flat, I noticed in the middle of the work day that the sofa was dirty and proceeded to clean it four different ways. The compulsions escalated from there and continue to this day. If something falls on the floor, I have to wash my hands after I pick it up. I have wet wipes everywhere and use them all the time, including if someone touches my phone, and I have to wash my hands after using them. Every time I leave my flat, everything is planned carefully in terms of touching things. Anytime I’m preparing food, touching bins, opening packages, touching doorknobs to leave my flat/building (I usually try to use the inside of a bag or jacket), pressing any buttons (knuckles come in handy), or hanging up wet laundry, my hands get washed several times or at least sanitised until I can wash them. You can always tell when I’m struggling the most in this area, particularly in winter (when my OCD is usually worse because people are always ill), because it gets to the point that my hands crack and bleed. I moisturise my hands every time after I wash them, but they still get so dry. I knew it was bad when my nephew asked me once why I washed my hands so much, and he wasn’t even five at the time. I also brush my teeth after every meal when I’m at home, which means I can brush them three or four, sometimes even five, times a day on a weekday when I’m at home more and eat more.

Since that episode, I’ve had even more difficulty working in an office because I get so distracted and distressed the second anyone coughs or sneezes or says they feel ill in any way. When the episode started, it didn’t take long for me to disclose everything to my manager, who was and remains incredibly supportive. She agreed to let me continue working from home and only come in for certain meetings, as recommended by occupational health at work. This has been helpful, but I still get a lot of anxiety whenever I have to go into the office for a meeting, especially if I have to eat in the office for a working lunch (something I’m completely against, even without OCD!) because there are a lot of doorknobs between the nearest sink and the meeting room where we eat. If I have to be there for a full day, I book a room to myself and wipe everything down with the wipes I bring with me everywhere. It also affects my work itself. I work indirectly with children with special educational needs and disabilities, and some of them have OCD. When possible, they get allocated to my colleague (who is not aware of my OCD, though I have told a couple of colleagues about it) because it triggers mine when they have similar themes. Fortunately, even though I struggle with working in an office for hours at a time, I haven’t become agoraphobic. I still go out to concerts, comedy, football games, and anywhere else I want, but there’s a lot of mental preparation involved to go anywhere and a lot of compulsions that happen along with it. Unfortunately, because I still do these things, it makes some people, like another manager, doubt that I have OCD because they don’t see how going to a stand-up show where I’m distracted by laughs (but still distracted and distressed by any coughing/sneezing) is different than being in an office. This doesn’t help when OCD is already called the ‘doubting disorder,’ and there are themes where you worry that you don’t really have it.

I also struggle a lot on public transportation because of both the fear of falling and injuring myself, like I did with my knee when I fell on the tube, and because of people coughing, sneezing, and touching things. During busy times or whenever I am alone, I always go all the way to one end of the tube to try to ensure that I’ll be able to sit down, thereby reducing the risks of falling and of having to touch things.

One of my biggest annoyances as someone with OCD is when people online make jokes like “They let their intrusive thoughts win” whenever someone shaves their head or does something silly. Things like that are impulsive thoughts, not intrusive thoughts. Intrusive thoughts can cause significant distress and are the opposite of what someone wants to do. It’s unlikely that a person with OCD would ever act on their intrusive thoughts because it goes against their values. An impulsive thought would probably be more like, “I want to push the emergency button at the train/tube station” or “I want to throw this bottle on the tracks.” An intrusive thought (one I have but haven’t really talked about with most people) is “What if I jump or push someone on the tracks?” Intrusive thoughts like this can lead to compulsions to avoid it, such as going to the end of the platform where there are fewer people.

Via treatmyocd.com

As you can tell from everything I’ve written, OCD is not something that’s ever easy, and it impacts your daily life. I made a decision not to date much because I don’t want to be a burden on anyone, even though I know that it is annoying to my family and friends. I also don’t have kids because there’s a higher chance that they could get it, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. My OCD is also a large part of the reason I live alone – living with other people doesn’t really work for me. I’ve lived with people before with different standards of living, and it doesn’t work. I’m well aware that it’s also a burden on the people closest to me. My family are usually understanding of it, even though it can be frustrating for them Most of my friends who have cared enough to talk to me about it and ask questions (which I’m always happy to answer) are also understanding. I do need a lot of reassurance, which is another theme of OCD, and I know it can be difficult for my friends and family to know how to manage that, but I do appreciate them trying. Unfortunately, there is still a lot of stigma and a lot of people who don’t care to learn more about it or how it affects the person who has it. It can cause friction in relationships because it’s an annoying thing by default. It’s extremely rare that it’s really affected my relationships, and I’m usually very good at maintaining relationships for decades. However, this is more difficult when the person with OCD is unable to stop the compulsions, and people don’t understand or even notice/care how much you’re struggling. People with OCD know it’s frustrating for the people around us, and all I can really say is that however frustrating it is for people who are exposed to it, it’s 1000 times more frustrating on a constant basis for the people who have it. OCD can be extremely isolating and depressing when you can tell that people don’t care that you’re struggling or tell you off for something you desperately want to control but can’t. It’s hard to feel accepted when you have people getting annoyed at you, which only increases the anxiety. You shouldn’t enable someone’s anxiety, but you also shouldn’t make them feel worse about it. We typically don’t even want you to do anything for us; we just want some patience and understanding. Telling us it’s in our heads (we know) or to ‘just stop’ (we can’t) doesn’t help and only makes us feel worse than the obsessions and compulsions already do. If you want to know what to say and what not to say to someone with OCD or want to know how to support them, I recommend checking out this article.

I hope this gives a better picture of what OCD is and isn’t and how draining and debilitating it can be. As you can see, the themes, manifestations, and severity can change over the years, but it’s something that is always with the person who has it. I can’t speak for everyone who has it, but if I were granted a wish, it would be to get rid of it – for me and for everyone else who suffers from it. Obviously that’s not realistic, and I know that it’s something that will always be part of my life and who I am. It’s something I struggle with on a daily – even hourly – basis. I’ve talked about it here and there before and have always been open about it when it’s come up, but few people are aware of the degree of it or of all of the obsessions and compulsions. There are a number that I haven’t even covered here, as well as some of my healthy (music and comedy) and unhealthy (maladaptive daydreaming) coping mechanisms. It’s also important to note that OCD presents differently in everyone. There are so many different OCD themes/subtypes, and just because one person has a subtype, it doesn’t mean everyone does. For instance, contrary to popular belief, not everyone has contamination OCD. If someone you know has it, the best thing you can do is be there for them, even when it’s frustrating, and listen to try to understand them and how it affects them. I would guess that most people with OCD would be willing to talk about it and answer any questions people have if it meant that they could be understood and accepted, which is all we really want. There’s still a long way to go towards educating people about it, but I hope this incredibly (scary!) personal post has helped with that a bit.

Via nOCD/The Mighty

Sexual Assault: How Women Protect Themselves, Why It’s Not Reported, and Supporting Survivors

*TRIGGER WARNING: Sexual assault

It goes without saying that talk about sexual assault has been fairly unavoidable the last few years, in part because of movements like #MeToo and over 20 allegations against President Trump. This has its pros and cons, as survivors of sexual assault are often reliving their assaults. However, there is strength in numbers, and women are becoming more and more comfortable with speaking out about their experiences. People are becoming more educated on sexual assault and seeing how common it actually is. Sexual assault statistics vary by country, but the numbers likely do not reflect the actual prevalence of sexual assault because it is often unreported for many reasons. Increased awareness and discussion on sexual assault is crucial not only for young people and future generations but also to help survivors heal. An overall understanding of sexual assault, what women do to protect themselves, why it’s so often unreported, and how to support sexual assault survivors is essential in creating a safer world for everyone.

Before delving into the subject, I should say that I started writing this 2 years ago for one of my other blogs when Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed for the Supreme Court, then 45’s appointment who threatens to strip women’s rights, but life got in the way. Even though there is a lot going on right now, this is still (unfortunately) a revelant subject. This will be a long one, but I hope it will open some eyes and minds to the truth about sexual assault. I have seen an increased understanding from some men over the last few years, but there is still a long way to go for both men and women when it comes to sexual assault, and there are still questions about what constitutes sexual assault. None of this is to say that men are not also at risk of being assaulted, but they are sexually assaulted far less than women, so this will focus more on women.

To be clear, sexual assault includes any form of sexual contact or activity where there is no consent, including unwanted touching/groping, rape, forced kissing, or forcing someone to touch you. It can make a person feel uncomfortable, powerless, or afraid, even threatened. Despite having “sexual” in its name, it is not always about sex and is often also about power and control, which is why sexual abuse is also a form of domestic abuse. It is also important to stress that not all sexual assault is rape, but rape is a form of sexual assault.

Even the most well-meaning men don’t always understand the effect the risk and fear of being sexually assaulted can have on women or how much women already do to protect themselves beyond the obvious. I’ve had men suggest classes to learn how to defend myself, which certainly is not a bad idea. Women are constantly told to dress a certain way, don’t drink too much, etc. This puts the onus on women to protect themselves, rather than on men to not attack them. Women already do a long list of things men do not realise or have to think about themselves, and yet they are still attacked.

To help men see how women try to protect themselves (and each other), I’ve compiled a far from exhaustive list of things women do or can do to try to protect themselves. It may sound like an exaggeration, but I can promise that you know someone who has done these things.

1. Using the buddy system when going out at night.
2. Not drinking alone and making sure our friends get home safely if they’ve been drinking too much.
3. Running and doing similar activities during daylight as much as possible.
4. Holding keys between fingers when walking alone at night.
5. Crossing the street if walking alone at night and seeing a man or group of men.
6. Not leaving drinks out in public places or accepting drinks when we haven’t seen them being poured.
7. Texting friends if we’re going out alone at night and letting them know where we’ll be and when they should expect to hear from us.
8. Meeting in public for first dates. – I was once invited to go to an Airbnb hot tub with someone as a first date. He took it well enough when I said no, but it amazed me that men still don’t understand why a woman would see this as dangerous.
9. Telling our friends where we’re going if we do decide to go home with someone.
10. Texting friends when we get home to let them know we’ve made it safely.
11. Ignoring/not confronting men who appear aggressive or lewd.
12. Pretending to be friends with women we don’t know if they’re alone and appear to be in an uncomfortable or potentially dangerous situation. – We all know that look that says, “Save me.” I think most women know that if they go up to another woman and say, “I’ve been looking for you!” or something along those lines, the other woman knows to act like they’re best friends. The same phrase can be used when helping a woman in this situation.
13. Limiting personal information on social media. – I may be the only one who does this, but I started hiding information about where I work a few years ago after a man I barely knew found out where I worked on Facebook and started sending me things there to try to get a date out of me.
14. Not wearing earbuds or wearing earbuds without the sound on when out alone at night. – I may not always do this, but I am always looking all around me, rather than just looking straight ahead. This is a pretty common one. Earbuds are an international sign of “don’t bother me” and should be treated as such.
15. Constantly being aware of surroundings and not going down alleys or places where people can’t easily see us, especially at night.
16. Checking the backseat of the car when getting in, especially at night, even if we’ve just been getting gas/petrol.
17. Making sure our phones always have a charge and having emergency numbers ready to just press Call if necessary.
18. Having someone we trust walk us out.
19. Waiting and watching to make sure our friends get in their homes safely when dropping them off and not driving off until they’re inside.
20. Parking near bright lights and getting house keys ready before we get home.
21. Taking taxis or Uber home if we’re leaving somewhere late or feel threatened. (Even that can be scary.)
22. Going into a public place or changing direction if we suspect we’re being followed.
23. Calling a friend/family when we’re walking alone at night and talking about where we are, so if someone is following us, they know someone knows where we are.
24. Not disclosing to Uber drivers or whoever if we’ll be alone when we get home.
25. Wearing fake rings because some men respect another man more than our right to not be interested or to say no.
26. Locking car doors even when we’re in the car.
27. Double-checking that all doors are locked at night.
28. Carrying pepper spray, Swiss army knives, or other potential weapons.
29. If our car breaks down, and we’re stranded, we let someone know where we are and lock the doors. I learned to always say I’m in an unsafe place when AAA asks when I call for help. Unfortunately, I learned this the hard way when I was pulled over on the side of a busy road one morning when a man stopped and said he’d be willing to help me “for a little something something.” Needless to say, I rolled up my window and made sure the doors were locked.
30. Staying in hotels as much as possible and avoiding couch surfing or staying in an Airbnb where we don’t get the whole place.
31. Avoiding walking by places alone at night where someone could easily hide.
32. Ignoring messages from men we don’t know and keeping DMs closed. Thankfully, Facebook has made it easier by filtering messages from people we’re not connected to, but that doesn’t stop the messages from coming.
33. Avoiding rest stops, toilets at petrol stations that are outside, etc. when alone at night.
34. Always knowing where the exits are.
35. Not opening our door if we’re home alone and not expecting anyone.
36. Taking self-defence classes or knowing the basics and having a plan in case of an attack, e.g. aim for the eyes/balls, do something gross (vomit, urinate, etc.) to try to keep them off.
37. Trusting our instincts about people/situations.
38. Uncomfortably laughing off/ignoring comments about us or our bodies or sexual advances that make us uncomfortable and trying to change the subject.
39. Making sure someone is home with us or someone else knows we have someone coming over for services, like TV repairs, etc.
40. Never leaving our drinks unattended.

I’m sure there are some who will say that women don’t really do all these things or that we’re being paranoid. We don’t stop living our lives or live in constant fear, but we really do live constantly being aware of potential danger. Of course, sexual assault still happens every day, and in America, someone is sexually assaulted every 73 seconds. (Note: This statistic said 98 seconds when I initially wrote this in 2018.) People can do things to protect themselves, but they only help so much. They don’t stop the random guy from grabbing your butt as he walks by while you’re waiting for the bus on a busy London street in broad daylight. It also doesn’t help that most people are assaulted by people known to them.

Via Pulse

When the above measures fail and a woman or girl does get assaulted, she may not report it, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. There are a number of valid reasons why sexual assault is not always reported. For one, it is incredibly difficult to get a conviction, and even if there are witnesses and evidence, justice is rarely served, particularly if the perpetrator comes from a certain background. (Look at Brock Turner for just one well-known example.) It can be re-traumatising to retell and relive the events in front of a court. Victims are expected to act a certain way, to cry or to be unemotional, and if they don’t act the way others think a victim is supposed to, it can affect how they are viewed and the outcomes. Meanwhile, like all types of abuse, we often hear that the perpetrator could/would never do that because they’re often ‘charming,’ so all the responsibility to be a certain way falls on the victim in order to be believed. Even without it going to court, victims are often not believed for one reason or another. They get told they ‘wanted it’ or just that it didn’t happen or didn’t happen how they remembered. Far too often, victims in general are blamed for what they said or what they wore or what/how much they drank. Victims can be bullied, especially teenagers, if they speak out. There’s a powerful documentary on Netflix called Audrie & Daisy about two teenage girls who were sexually assaulted, who were bullied and abused after their assaults. Sadly, both of them have since completed suicide as a result of what they experienced.

In addition to the above reasons sexual assault is underreported, there is a lack of education for young people around sexual assault, consent, and healthy and unhealthy relationships. We tend to hear ‘Boys will be boys,’ which completely excuses harmful behaviour and releases them from taking responsibility for their actions. It suggests that boys are unable to control themselves, an attitude that is dangerous in itself. Likewise, this can cause women and girls to minimise sexual assault when it does happen to them. They might say, “Well, I wasn’t raped, so it’s not a big deal.” We are taught from a young age not to make a fuss, and sadly, that allows these behaviours from men to continue.

In 2016, when the tape was released of Trump saying he liked to “grab ’em by the pussy,” many women were reminded of their own sexual assaults. In 2017, #MeToo became a thing, and we were again reminded. In 2018, we were reminded yet again during the Brett Kavanaugh hearing. A lot of people still didn’t seem to completely understand it in 2019 when reporter Alex Bozarjian was smacked on her backside by a runner on live TV, and people (usually men) continued to make jokes or act like it wasn’t sexual assault. All of these sparked international discussion and, for many, a firmer understand of consent and what constitutes sexual assault. Consent, sexual assault, and sex education aren’t completely or appropriately taught in many schools, and this can lead to a lot of confusion from both men and women about what is and isn’t okay. It’s unfortunate that it has taken so many women (and male victims) to open up about their experiences to make people start to understand what it really is, but I applaud anyone who was brave enough to come forward, often risking their safety and well-being to do so.

Via theconversation.com

*Trigger warning for personal account of sexual assault*

When I heard Trump’s “grab ’em by the pussy” comment in 2016, I was taken back an incident when I was a teenager that had been in the back of my mind for years but that I don’t think I ever really told anyone. I think it was partly embarrassment/fear people would think I wanted it since I liked him, partly a lack of understanding that sexual assault isn’t just rape or that I didn’t want it, and partly that I didn’t understand what difference it’d make if people knew. That changed when I heard Trump’s comment, and it opened up discussions about sexual assault. I started telling a few people, including one or two who knew the perpetrator. Thankfully, I was listened to and believed by the handful of people I told. (One who knew the guy even guessed that it was him, perhaps because he knew some of our history.) It felt good to get it off my chest, and I gained a deeper understanding of the fact that I had been assaulted and how it’s affected me since then, which I won’t get into here. I did not remember all of the more minor details of it at first, but interestingly, when I heard Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony at the Kavanaugh hearing, I suddenly remembered exactly what I was wearing and how that came into play, too. Memory is a weird thing, and you never know what can trigger it, but Trump’s comment and that testimony certainly did.

When I was a teenager, I really liked this guy we’ll call B. (This is not his actual initial.) We’d been talking and hanging out for a few weeks and sort of tiptoed around some interest, even though I knew he didn’t like me as more than a friend, and he knew that I did like him. I was a painfully shy, inexperienced teenager, though, and probably latched on to any sort of attention. It culminated when I went to his house when his mother wasn’t home, and we were making out, but I was clear that I was not ready to have sex with him and just wanted to kiss. What actually happened was him dry humping me, taking my hand and putting it on him (clothed) when he was hard and saying, “Now you can say you’ve touched B’s hard penis.” Those are bad enough, and I was uncomfortable but still didn’t really understand what was happening. When I told a friend about it later, she joked, “You gave him blue balls.” To be fair to her, I don’t think either of us really understood all that happened.

When I was leaving, he walked me to my car. I was wearing a black, cotton corset-type top that tied together with ribbons, not clasps, and jean shorts. None of it was necessarily sexy, especially for a hot Florida summer. I don’t remember what led up to it, but I remember B running his hand down my top, so some of the ribbons came loose, revealing more than I’d wanted. Oddly, I didn’t remember that until I heard Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony, but then it became clear as day.

What I did remember for over 15 years was that at some point, B also – without warning or asking – put his hand down my shorts and groped me in the same way Trump admitted to doing. He then made a disgusting comment I remember but won’t repeat. I tend to laugh nervously when I’m uncomfortable, and I may have done that, but I also remember clearly telling him that I said no sex or anything and to stop. Naïvely, I’d assumed he knew that meant that I didn’t want to be suddenly “grabbed by the pussy” either.

I will never forget what he said after I protested what he had just done. He made a comment about being bigger and stronger and said, “I could have raped you.” Chilling.

I wish I could say that was the end of things with him, but that wouldn’t be true. I didn’t really understand what actually happened until years later, only that I had felt incredibly uncomfortable and embarrassed and did not want any of those things to happen. I think that to this day, there is some self-blame for continuing to still like him after that and not ending contact altogether. But teenagers aren’t exactly known for understanding what is and isn’t healthy when it comes to relationships.

When I did understand the situation and tell people I felt I could trust, I was thankfully met with compassion and understanding that not all victims get. That doesn’t change that we can all do more to support victims and try to prevent sexual assault by educating ourselves and others.

Via Active Minds

What You Can Do

Education on consent starts from a young age. Teach children – boys and girls – young. Teach them that they do not have to say yes to anything that makes them uncomfortable. Teach them about consent. Teach them to respect when someone says no. Think they’re too young? They are never too young. Consent does not only apply to sexual contact. Even young children can tell/show you if they do not want basic contact – hugging, kissing, holding, tickling. If you ask a child for a hug, and they say no, and you do it anyway, you are not respecting their right to say no. If you are tickling a child, and they tell you to stop, STOP. Immediately and without teasing. This will teach them that you respect their right to stop at any time and that they can feel safe saying it. That is a lesson that will stay with them as they get older.

It is unfortunate that some countries do not have appropriate sex education or they teach abstinence-only education, which does not work. Teaching about the physical side of sex and bodies is not enough. Children and young people do not always see healthy relationships modelled for them, which can cause them to enter unhealthy, abusive relationships. Even without the relationship side of things, children need to be taught consent. They need to understand that if it’s not an enthusiastic yes, it’s a no, and they cannot just assume that someone wants what they do. If someone is intoxicated or under the age of consent, they can’t legally consent, and it’s rape/sexual assault, even if they say yes. It is important to understand the emotional and legal repercussions of sexual assault and not respecting consent or lack thereof. We should advocate for sex education to be covered appropriately in schools, but it can’t just be up to schools to teach these things. Children need positive role models and see healthy relationships in their lives, whether it’s through family or mentors or school.

Boys, in particular, need to be taught to respect women and girls (and just people in general). They need to understand that women do not owe them anything no matter what. There’s that view of “I’m a nice guy, but I keep getting friendzoned.” This is such a dangerous statement. First of all, the friendzone does not exist because women are capable of being friends with a guy without ever having thoughts of more. If you are only nice to a woman or friends with a woman because you think she’ll give you something in return, you are neither nice, nor a friend, and there’s a good chance she sees that. Just like you are not attracted to every woman you see, women are not obligated to give or be anything for you. But I hear so often about ‘Nice Guys’ complaining about women, and it’s this kind of attitude or the view that they are owed that leads to things like sexual assault. More than teaching girls and women to do the things I noted above to keep themselves safe, it is essential to change the view too many boys (and men) have by teaching them that they are never entitled to a woman.

It’s actually incredibly easy to teach consent in simple terms. Take a look at the video below as an example.

When it comes to supporting people who have been sexually assaulted, there’s a lot you can do. The most important thing is to listen. Never pressure someone to make a report or do something they don’t want to do, which can also cause them to feel like they don’t have control over their situation. Let them tell you whatever they want to tell you in their own time. Don’t press for details and never, ever blame them or ask questions that could be blaming. Believe them. For them to go to you and tell you what happened, it shows that they trust you. Show them that they made the right decision telling you by being supportive and thank them for trusting you with something personal and difficult to share.

It is also crucial to understand that not everyone will respond to sexual assault the same way. As I said above, some people may be numb and seem unaffected. Some may be shocked. Some may be tearful. There is no right way to act after you have been sexually assaulted, whether it just happened or was 15 years ago. Everyone will be different. People talk about ‘fight or flight’ in difficult situations, but it neglects another response: freeze. Many people may freeze during and after sexual assault. There is a truly brilliant series from BBC in the UK and HBO in the US called I May Destroy You. It details several different types of rape (including of a man) and the different responses the people had to it. It handles sexual assault and rape in a very realistic way and shows the effects of it. (It was inspired by Michaela Coel’s own experience of sexual assault, and she deserves every award for the series.) I won’t lie: It’s a difficult watch, but I also think it should be required viewing for young people and adults to help them understand more about sexual assault.

Via Citrus College

What it really comes down to is that we need to educate ourselves and each other. Rape culture absolutely (unfortunately) exists, and we need to call it out when we see it. Call your friends out if they make jokes about sexual assault/rape. Call them out when you see them disrespecting women or acting like they are entitled to a woman. ‘Locker room talk’ should not consist of degrading women, and the only way to change things is if men are allies for women and call out toxic behaviour like that when they see it. We need to trust others’ experiences and trust our own. Realistically, sexual assault will never be completely eradicated, but we also need to all work together to do everything we can to prevent it and support each other, starting with age-appropriate formal and informal education. None of this post is by any means exhaustive in terms of the things women do to protect themselves, why sexual assault is underreported, and what you can do to help, but I hope it fostered a bit more understanding. If everyone just takes a few simple steps to support each other, we will see better outcomes for everyone.

Just Give It Time

“Quiet landslide that nobody knows. Regretted decisions that nobody chose. Underwater, sinking fast. No way out, no way to get back. What might have been is lost in the past. Just give it time. It’s gonna get better. Now is not forever at all. Just give it time, and everything changes. Tomorrow comes, today will be gone. Everything’s gonna be all right. Just give it time…” –Jon McLaughlin, “Just Give It Time”

Social media is a liar. That’s the most simple, straightforward way to put it. We filter our pictures to make ourselves look better, but we also filter everything we post to make our lives look better. We manufacture our looks, our relationships, our families, and everything else we do on social media. We often do this in life, too, not letting people see the real us, the struggling us.

In one of my lectures earlier this year, we did an activity where we passed balloons around the room and wrote something positive about each person on their balloon. I was described as a ‘smiley,’ ‘always happy,’ ‘adventurous,’ ‘positive person.’ It’s interesting because I’ve had so many people from my past, even people I went to school with 20-something years ago, who have told me they admire how ‘adventurous’ I am and love following my travels around the world. I’ve never really seen myself as particularly adventurous (or ‘brave,’ which is the one I hear most that gives me a good laugh). These things just show that either people see me differently than I see myself or that really good at showing a certain side of myself. Introverts like me internalise every little thing and struggle internally, letting only those closest to us get a glimpse at the truth. I imagine that extroverts do the same to some extent. We’re all just big liars, determined for people to see us a certain way. It’s like we’re all wrapped up in a big conspiracy, a self-created web of filtered lies and lives, designed to fool one another.

Hell to the liars. Here’s to you and me.

“Life isn’t fair. It’s just fairer than death, that’s all.”

Let’s get real. We all have times in our lives when we think it’s finally our turn, the light is finally changing. Then something happens with the potential to monumentally change the course of our lives – and us – in a heartbeat. It can force us to open up and be vulnerable. That’s what happened to me last year. When I had my knee injury, I never anticipated it would affect me as long as it has or in the ways it has. I may be about 85% recovered by my own estimates, but the effects are long-lasting and still affecting me now.

I’ve always been a private person, keeping people at arm’s length, and respected the privacy of others, letting people open up on their terms without pressuring them. I’ve had to take a lot of taxis recently, forcing me to make small talk (an introvert’s nightmare!) with taxi drivers and strangers who ask what happened to my knee. I always think of how awkward it would be if it was caused by something really traumatic or terrible like, “My boyfriend pushed me down the stairs.” Whenever I tell people what happened, they ask if I was drinking. I wasn’t, but what if I was and had a drinking problem? This is probably my social worker brain working overtime, but these things could make it really traumatic and difficult to talk about.

The truth? It was traumatic. It might not sound like a big deal to clumsily fall on the tube in front of lots of people, making a big, embarrassing scene while being in the worst pain imaginable and being in shock. It was extremely traumatic, and even I didn’t know how bad it was at the time or that it’d still affect my life 9 months later. But the good thing – if there’s anything good about this – is that it has forced me to be more outgoing, to open up more and allow myself to be more vulnerable. I still keep a lot to myself. I don’t talk about how I can’t take the tube without having flashbacks and how I think I have some PTSD from it. How many of us would talk about that? We just put our brave faces on and make it look like everything is hunky dory.

Life going well right now? Careful. Life = Jareth the Goblin King

If someone asked if everything really was hunky dory now, I wouldn’t know what to say. Maybe that it’s getting there, but I’m still dealing with stress and uncertainty. I’ve had a lot of people ask what my plan is now that I’ve finally finished my master’s. Will I stay in England? Move back to the US? Go somewhere else? The truth is I don’t know. I never want to be defined or remembered by one thing that happened to me. I can’t deny, though, that my injury has had a significant impact on my life, potentially changing the course of it, not by the injury itself but by the aftermath. Finishing postgrad late and spending money on things I wouldn’t have otherwise (like taxis) has delayed everything. I have received a conditional job offer in England. I’ve kept quiet about it and am still not revealing more details because I’m not sure if it’s going to work out. Getting a visa is extremely difficult, again largely because of the financial issues I wouldn’t have had otherwise that are putting a hold on applying for one, thus putting a hold on the job. I don’t know where I’ll be in 2 months when my current visa expires. Imagine not even knowing what continent you’ll be on in 2 months! I want to settle in England more than anything. I feel more at home here than anywhere else I’ve lived. I got my master’s here to make it easier to transition into a job, and there are no words to describe how gutted I’ll be if my master plan doesn’t work out. Even though I have backup plans, I really don’t want to consider them. Everything is up in the air right now because that’s life. I was having a hard time accepting it, but I have to believe it will work out the way it’s meant to, cliché as it is. Why? I have no other choice. Everything usually does work out at the last minute. Every major move or change of my life has worked out in the nick of time – Chicago, South Korea, England. I don’t regret any of these things, and they all brought me to where I am now and made me who I am today, but it makes me wish things could be easy just once.

This isn’t a ‘poor, pitiful Lindsey’ post. There are few things I despise more than being pitied. I don’t want sympathy; I want understanding that sometimes questions about people’s personal lives or plans can be difficult to answer for a multitude of reasons you don’t know about. We all want empathy and understanding, no matter the situation, but we continue to close ourselves off. We’re so afraid to let people see the real, beautiful, imperfect us, we don’t even give them a chance to show us the empathy and understanding we crave and fear simultaneously.

That’s the point I’m trying to get to in this rambling, jumbled post. Because we’re all a bunch of liars, we don’t see let others see the cards we’ve been dealt or who we really are, so we don’t really know each other. This also means we can easily lose ourselves in the process of creating these false narratives. That’s why I needed to be a little more real in this post. This is about taking off the mask and showing that what you see online or even in person is never the full picture. That’s true of everyone. We all want everyone to think we’re okay all the time, but we’re not, and that’s okay. On social media and in life, we only show the snippets of our lives that we want others to see, but there’s always more beneath the surface. The more you have to show on social media how great your relationship is or other BS, the more it seems like you’re trying to prove to yourself and everyone else that everything is great when that might not be the case. That makes the fall from grace even harder. The more you act like everything’s perfect, the less real you seem. It’s understandable. It can take a lot of courage to be real. That just leaves us to suffer on our own, and we shouldn’t have to do that, especially we’re not alone, and we’re all suffering from something.

I’m not saying we should complain about everything or reveal every detail of our lives. I’m saying that we should not be afraid to let ourselves be real sometimes. We shouldn’t be afraid to be vulnerable or to believe that we are enough exactly as we really are. We shouldn’t feel like we have to prove something all the time. It’s okay to not to be okay sometimes. This mad world is full of ‘not okay’ periods, but it will get better. As they say in my meditations (Calm has been an absolute life saver!), everything is impermanent. ‘Now is not forever at all. Just give it time…’

We can’t expect for things to magically get better or to go it alone, though. Things will only get better if we’re in this together and spread love. One of my absolute favourite musicians/people Andrew McMahon once said:

We live in this culture where everything is supposed to be so hip and so cool, and it’s not cool to love, and it’s not cool to take care of each other, and it’s not cool to stand up for ourselves. But you know what? Fuck all of that. I believe in love, and I believe that the only way that we are going to survive this fucking craziness that’s going on in our world today is if we just learn to look at love, turn our heads the other way from all the bullshit, and fucking love.

If that isn’t true now more than ever, I don’t know what is. We all need to stop worrying about looking cool in our manufactured lives and see ourselves and each other as we really are and just ‘fucking love.’

You don’t forget the people who show genuine love, compassion, understanding, and empathy when you need it most. Life is pretty hard for a lot of people right now. We’re all facing our own unique challenges and uncertainties. That’s all the more reason we need to be compassionate and really be in this together, not against each other or trying to outdo each other. The only way we’ll survive all of the crazy things happening to us and around us is by being together. We all need to feel accepted and understood, like we can be ourselves without the facade. If we all took some time to really see the people around us and understand them, maybe we could all take off our masks, remove all the filters we only think we need, and live happier, fulfilling, truthful lives as our beautiful, imperfect selves.

So Close

“And these could be the best or darkest days. The lines we walk are paper thin. And we could pull this off or push away ’cause you and me have always been so close. So close to giving up. So close to going all the way…” –Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness, “So Close”

This post was initially going to be about completing my first year of postgrad. I got the inspiration for it at an Andrew McMahon concert in Manchester when he performed “So Close” only a couple of days after the Manchester Arena bombing. By the time I actually finished my first year in September, I was tired of writing and pushed it aside. I think the song still applies now but in a different context.

When I told some of my family I was writing this blog about the last year/few months, the response was, “That might be depressing.” Most people would likely agree that 2017 was a challenging year, and that’s an understatement. In a world where the words “President Trump” are a reality instead of just a punchline, it’s easy to feel that all hope is lost. But I’m not here to get political (for once). That would be too easy to do, and since when have I ever taken the easy way out?

I recently learned the hard way that denial is not the healthiest coping mechanism, but sometimes it is the only way to survive.

2017 started off well enough personally. I was super busy with postgrad work. The first few months were completely occupied by essays, but I figured life would get a bit easier if I made it through everything with passing marks (which I did). I always knew postgrad would be a lot of work, but I honestly don’t know how people raise families or work jobs and do it, and those people get my utmost respect.

There are so many times I came so close (See how that title works here?!) to quitting, tempted to register as a social worker in the UK and get a job. I reminded myself of all I went through to get here and that if I ever do have to move back to the US, I’d need my masters to do anything I want in social work. That is not the case in the UK where there’s not much difference between a BSW and an MSW, and I’m the only one on my course with a BSW. But I persisted. Living in England has been such an amazing experience and worth all the postgrad stress. I’ve met so many amazing people, which I’ll talk about more later. If Theresa May and co. want me gone, they’re going to have to throw me out kicking and screaming!

April took a turn for the better and was easily the best month of the year with the birth of my niece, Elodie, and other good things happening. Everything after was sort of a disappointment at best, but having this sweet little girl live so close to me (in London) that we’ve actually been able to bond makes up for all the bad.

Sticking our tongues out is clearly hilarious. It’s also how El and I say, “I love you.”

Of course there really was a lot of bad – in the world and in my own life. I won’t get into all of it (Positivity, remember?), but the last 3 or so months of 2017 were some of the hardest of my life. I wrote another blog about songs to make you cry because I was doing a lot of crying at times. I’m not writing this one as a review of 2017, though bits of it have turned out that way; I’m writing it because there are some important things I want to talk about that I think we can all use to regain some of that lost hope and faith in humanity and remind us to persevere. (“Nevertheless, she persisted” was my motto of the year – or life, really.) To do that, I do have to talk about this one big, bad thing that happened.

I was in London in November for my birthday and a social work conference. After spending a great weekend with some of my family (that photo above was just the day before this happened), I took the tube to change from one hotel to another for the conference the next day. I was carrying luggage and rushed on to the tube before the doors closed, not because I was being impatient but because I was listening to music and didn’t register that the doors were closing. I made it, but as soon as I got in, I crashed to the floor. I was completely humiliated that I fell in front of so many people. More than that, I was in so much pain that I screamed, “My ankle!” I think the pain was so intense, and I was in so much shock, that I couldn’t even focus on the real problem at first. My ankle did hurt because I sprained it, but my kneecap was actually dislocated. (Only I am clumsy enough to dislocate my patella and sprain my ankle at the same time doing absolutely nothing. That’s talent!) I’ll spare the gory details, but I instinctively moved it back into place myself in a complete panic. Needless to say, the whole thing was pretty traumatic – the pain, the embarrassment, the fear of how I would make it back to York after the conference (which I didn’t make it to) the next day.

I can’t lie. This injury has been an absolute bitch. When I was given crutches and a massive immobiliser at Royal London Hospital, the doctor said I’d just have to use them as long as I was symptomatic. Great, I thought, this isn’t too bad, and I’ll only have to use them for few days! Never mind that my knee was probably 5 times its usual size, and I had bruises all over both of my legs and palms. I read later that a dislocated kneecap takes 6 weeks to heal. Okay, a bit worse than I expected but manageable. I’d still be able to go on the solo trip to Berlin on Boxing Day that I booked less than 24 hours before the fall, so everything would be okay…

So optimistic. So naïve.

As the days and weeks passed, I became a bit more realistic. I cancelled my Berlin trip. I initially went back to placement after a few days but ended up being forced to take time off at the end of November – and have not been able(/allowed) to return yet – because I was still struggling so much, which means that my placement will finish later, and I’ll have to get an extension on my dissertation deadline and likely change the type of dissertation to accommodate this. When it rains, it pours, right?

One silver lining I thought of the moment this happened was that it happened in the UK where I have the NHS. If it had happened in the US, I would have owed thousands, even with insurance. Under NHS, I’ve had an A&E visit, crutches and an immoboliser, x-rays, MRI, GP visits, ortho visits, physiotherapy. What have I paid for all of this medical care? £0. To be fair, I did have to pay a health fee with my visa, but even that was only about $300 for over a year, basically what I paid in the US for one month for crappy insurance that didn’t even cover everything. Besides some dignity and independence, the only thing that has really cost me anything as a result of this injury is all the taxis I’ve had to take and when I rented a wheelchair to take out for longer trips around York. I’ve easily spent hundreds(!) on taxis the last 2 months, but that’s a lot better than taxis and medical care. I’m forever grateful this happened here because it could be a lot worse.

I’d say this is how I greet people now, but I probably always have… with a smile.

Now the real reason for this post, that glimmer of hope for anyone reading this. There’s a stereotype about people who live in London being rude or not paying attention to other people on the tube. I’ve met very few rude people whenever I’ve been to London, and especially when I fell, it could not have been further from the case for me. I instantly had a crowd of people around me, wanting to help. They called the train driver, and he stopped the train at the next stop and came to me. He and several others helped me off the train, and one very sweet, young guy even offered to stay with me, though I refused because I didn’t want to hold him up. (Stupid, stupid, Lindsey…) The people at the station also helped me and let me stay with them in the control room while we waited for an ambulance for an hour before giving up, and they helped me get a taxi.

New Year’s Eve marked 7 weeks since this happened, and I’m still not walking without crutches because I have no stability, and I can’t straighten my knee at all. I’ve only been able to touch my heel to the floor at all in the last couple weeks or so because my knee and ankle are so stiff. It has been a real struggle, to say the least, especially because I’m incredibly stubborn and independent. You don’t move across the world several times without being that way. It does mean, however, that I’m not great at asking for or accepting help sometimes. I’ve had to change my stance on this since there’s not a whole lot one can do – or carry – on crutches, but I still try to do as much for myself as I can.

Thankfully, I’ve not had to ask for help much because people offer, even insist, before I can ask. I’m continually in awe of how nice and helpful everyone has been. Whether it’s my friend doing my laundry for me, classmates kicking leaves out of the way so I could walk up some steps outside without worrying about slipping, supermarket employees walking around the store with me and carrying my groceries for me, the people in my building helping me carry things up to my room, a random stranger opening a door for me, or the woman walking by my brother’s London flat the other day who saw me struggling to carry my suitcase down the stairs by myself and stopped to carry it down for me, I have been absolutely moved at how kind everyone has been. These are only a few of the countless examples of the human kindness I’ve experienced since this terrible injury. Pretty much the only people who haven’t been helpful at all were some tourists in London who wouldn’t give up their seats on public transportation (the locals – and you can tell the difference – always did) and one Uber driver.

All of this is really a long-winded way of saying that “Sometimes your circumstances suck, but life doesn’t.” Andrew McMahon once said that, and as a cancer survivor, he would know. It’s incredibly easy to want to give up when all the cards are stacked against you, but you might learn not only what you are capable of (survival!) but also what others are. 2017 showed that yes, there are a lot of ugly people, but it also showed me that most people are still basically good. People still care about others and want to help and see you succeed, even if there’s nothing in it for them. It’s okay to accept/ask for help, and if you’re capable, you should always try to help others. You never know what a difference your small (small to you, almost certainly not to the receiver) act of kindness might make in someone’s day or life or perspective, especially in these times. Be that ripple of hope!

As for myself, I’m going to pull this (postgrad, life, whatever) off and go all the way, so when people talk about me, they’ll remember my motto and say:

“Nevertheless, she persisted.”

Making lemonade…

The Future Holds a Lion’s Heart

“Say hello to your future. I’m just pleased to meet you. You were a million miles away. Say hello to your lion’s heart. Queen Victoria’s England will never ever be the same.” -Darren Hayes, “The Future Holds a Lion’s Heart”

I’ve taken several big leaps of faith since I became an adult. Moving to Chicago without a job and renting an apartment I hadn’t seen in person, moving back to North Carolina temporarily without being sure I’d get a job in South Korea, and moving to a country I’d never visited and where I didn’t speak the language. All of those risks paid off, and nearly a year ago, I wrote about making another major life change. I decided to leave Korea and apply for postgrad. In case that wasn’t risky enough, I also decided to only apply to universities in the UK.

When I started teaching in Korea, I’d thought that I didn’t want to go back to social work. I didn’t want to continue in the area of the field I had been stuck in for several years. Several experiences/jobs in Chicago (particularly with a certain terrible boss/bully) burnt me out on social work, and I lost a lot of confidence. When I worked for a great company before I left for Korea and after I came back, I saw that they weren’t all as bad as the ones I’d worked for in Chicago. I regained a lot of confidence and courage, thanks to that company and my experiences in Korea. I finally felt ready to apply for postgrad in the UK. I knew I was taking another chance by leaving Korea and only applying to universities in the UK without knowing if I’d get accepted anywhere, but I’d had this dream of moving to the UK for many years and needed to finally make it happen. The time was perfect, and I was finally in the right mindset and place in my life to do it.

I finally realised this was true. I’m ready to be even smarter, stronger, and more sensual!

With a new long-term goal, I applied at several universities in England. The process for Social Work students was different than for other fields, and being an international student only made it more complicated. To receive an unconditional offer, they required interviews, group tests, essays, background checks for the UK and every country I’d lived in for the last five years, medical clearances, and all the annoying things that should be required for social workers. As an international student, I was exempt from some things (like group tests) at some universities, but I still had to do Skype interviews and essays. It was quite a stressful, expensive process, but I knew it’d be worth it if it worked out.

True to my long history of having everything (Chicago, Korea, etc.) come together at the very last minute, I’m thrilled to report that it did work out. After months of back and forth with my chosen university, I can finally, officially announce that I’ll be attending the University of York. I chose York because it has a great reputation as both a city and university. It looks absolutely gorgeous and is supposed to be one of the top universities in the UK/world. York’s only two hours from both London and Edinburgh by train and is close to other big cities. Since I’ve been on my own as an adult, I’ve always lived far away from family, so it’ll be nice to be close to my brother and sister-in-law for a bit. York is also one of the safest cities in the UK, though I think I’d feel safer anywhere in the UK than the US. (I was definitely spoilt by the safety in Korea!)

My friends heard this a lot during the process and will probably hear it more while I’m there.

While it’s been challenging from the beginning, going back to school presents new challenges and experiences I’ve never had before. At the ripe old age of 31, I’ll be living on campus for the first time, though I’ll have my own room and en suite. I’ve only ever lived on my own or with family, never with roommates. I’m anxious, but I’ve never had the true university experience, so I’m looking forward to finally living it.

Overall, though, I’m very excited for my next adventure and seeing what happens and what changes over the next few years. It’s surreal that this dream I’ve had for so long is coming true. It still hasn’t hit me that I’ll be living there for at least two years, and I imagine it won’t until I’m there in a few weeks. I’m going with an open mind, as I always do, and planning to learn more about social work, the UK, and of course, myself. Maybe I’ll even finally find my home and settle down there. Whatever happens, I’m ready to say “hello” to my future and my lion’s heart…

And I will!

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Show You Sometime

“So put my picture on your button, my name around your hat. Call all the neighbours, and tell them I’m back. I’ve changed. I’ve come in from the ledge. I’ve changed. There’s nothing here at all. There’s nothing here at all for me to run from.” -Evan and Jaron, “Show You Sometime”

In less than 24 hours, I’m leaving Korea and returning (at least temporarily) to my old life in the States. To say that I’ve been on an emotional roller coaster the last few weeks would be a terrible understatement. I’ve spent a lot of time reminiscing about my first few weeks in Korea, only a year ago. It feels like yesterday and like forever ago, somehow all at the same time. Leaving the place I’ve called home for a year is bittersweet, more than I expected. I love Korea, but I’m ready to move on to the next chapter. It’s still difficult to leave some of the best friends I’ve ever had, but I’ve made so many wonderful memories here that I’ll cherish for the rest of my life. This post, like all of them, will be a reflective one about the ways I’ve changed (and I have!) and things I will and won’t miss Korea.

There’s a great Snow Patrol line that goes, “I’m just not the same as I was a year ago and each minute since then.” This lyric sums up my year more accurately than anything I could come up with on my own. I’m 31 and was confident that I knew myself well. As it turns out, living in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language changes you in ways that no other experience really can. When I came here, I wanted to be open to everything and try new things, especially things that scared me. I’ve shed some of my shyness by hanging out with people I’d never met or didn’t know well and became great friends with some of them. I’ve shared rooms with complete strangers. (If you know me, you know that I hate sharing a room with anyone, no matter how close we are. I still do, but at least I’m a tiny bit better about it.) I’ve eaten foods I’d never try otherwise, like octopus (just one sliver) and Beondegi (silkworm pupae). I’ve travelled solo and discovered I love wandering aimlessly on my own. I’ve gone skinny dipping. To my surprise, I found out that I love ziplining and roller coasters, which I’d only ever been on once, despite practically growing up at Disney and Universal. These all sound like normal or minor things for most people, but for me, they were big. I most likely wouldn’t have done/overcome any of them without coming to Korea. I feel virtually fearless.

I’ve changed most, however, in that I’ve lost some of my sense of shame. I once was easily embarrassed, but I attract attention wherever I go in Korea just by looking different. “Graceful,” for example, is not a word most people would use to describe me, crushing my dream of being a ballerina. Whether it’s falling on a full bus twice, singing horribly at noraebang, or accidentally exposing myself before getting a massage at the spa (not the jjimjilbang, where you are meant to be nude), I laugh about those moments now. I accept that my clumsiness makes me who I am and is one thing that’ll never change.

Awkward and clumsy. That’s who I am. But I’m also fabulous!

Inevitably, Korea hasn’t all been rainbows and unicorns. There are some things I knew I wouldn’t like or miss. These are not all bad, just different, and were things I had to get used to over time but sometimes didn’t. This isn’t everything I didn’t like, but these are the top things. It’s not meant to be negative but something for anyone coming to Korea to be aware of and to help people who won’t do this understand why I was sometimes frustrated.

1. Food – I knew I wouldn’t like Korean food much, and that hasn’t changed. As a vegetarian, my options are incredibly limited. I do like bibimbap, but in general, I have found that too much of the food I can eat tastes the same. I quickly tired of the same things at school every day and of questioning whether most things I ate were truly vegetarian. Obviously I knew the foods I mentioned above weren’t, but that was the only time I knowingly broke my diet, and I felt so sick after eating them. I also got tired of explaining that vegetarians don’t just pick the meat out or eat around it. As nice as it is when people share food, which is all the time, I don’t like the pressure to accept everything given to you or to share your own food. Sometimes you just get tired of rice cakes or just aren’t hungry. Alternatively, sometimes you want to have a little snack without having to share it with everyone. I thought sweet foods were too bland, and salty foods were too sugary. Let’s just say that I look forward to eating garlic bread that tastes like garlic and isn’t covered in sugar when I get home. (Yes, that’s real.)

2. Hygiene – I knew about the spitting, but I didn’t know how bad it was before I came here. I’ve always been repulsed by the act, but I can’t walk down the street (or even inside some places, like school) without seeing someone spit. However, Koreans are great about brushing their teeth. You could go into any bathroom – public or private – and see multiple women brushing their teeth. I’ve no problem with that. I just wish the same applied to washing hands, which is sorely lacking with many.

3. Korean Surprises – Anyone who teaches here has heard of this. It’s real. This could go on the list of things I will and won’t miss. Sometimes they’re good surprises, but more often than not they’re frustrating. Cancelled class? Great! The class that was supposed to be cancelled is back on and starting in 5 minutes because there’s a schedule change, and you have no worksheets printed for said class? Not as great. These are very minor examples, but Korean Surprises happen all the time. There was probably at least one a week, sometimes more than one in one day. Sometimes were left to figure it out on our own. Korea being the rushed culture it is in general, I was often left scrambling.

4. Appearance – In Korea, the sad truth is that if you don’t look a certain way, life will be rough. People get plastic surgery to get jobs. I taught middle school and had students tell me they have already had people tell them they should fix this or that. Friends had students as young as grade 6 who came back from breaks with new noses or eyelids. For women especially, there’s a massive focus on appearance, as if we’re only good for looking pretty. Things that would be inappropriate in Western culture are not inappropriate to say in Korea. People who are average where I’m from are considered fat in Korea. Westerners (especially pale ones), however, are often considered beautiful. If you want to be constantly told you’re beautiful, move to Korea. Believe me, you’ll tire of hearing it quickly. Sometimes you just want to say, “Thanks, but I’m also smart and nice with a killer sense of humour. Let’s talk about those things!” It makes me feel bad for Koreans, who are pressured to always look good. It’s kind of like being in Hollywood, except it’s expected of everyone.

It’s true, but it’s lucky that I am.

Now that those are out of the way, let’s focus on some of the many things that I will miss the most. Most are pretty self-explanatory, so I’ll just touch on them briefly.

1. Internet – Korea has the fastest Internet in the world, which makes it equally hilarious and frustrating that they still use Internet Explorer for everything. There’s also free wifi in most places, including many buses. Need I say more? I’m not looking forward to going back to terrible, slow Internet that often stops working.

2. Shoes – As someone who despises shoes, I loved not having to worry about wearing uncomfortable shoes at work. I wore regular shoes to school and then spent the day in slippers. It made me wish they did this everywhere.

3. Keyless entry – It was so nice to be able to leave my apartment with only my phone and wallet or to rent an Airbnb and not have to actually meet the host. No lost keys; all you have to do is remember a code. Again, every place in the world should be required to do this. It’s brilliant.

4. Rock, Paper, Scissors – It’s not just a children’s game. It’s the best way to make decisions or solve arguments because the rules stand. I’m convinced that it would solve all the world’s problems if we gave it a shot. Fighting over land or, say, an island? Play 가위바윕 and winner gets it. (Hey, with all these great ideas, maybe I should run for President.)

World peace. You’re welcome.

5. Public transportation – I lived in a town with under 50,000 people. There were multiple buses less than five minutes from my apartment, and I wasn’t even downtown. These buses could get anywhere in town or even to bigger cities, like Daejeon. In small town America, as I’ll soon learn, it’s pretty much impossible to get anywhere without a car. The high-speed train (KTX) made me feel like I was living in luxury. Korea is a very small country, roughly the size of the state where I was born (Indiana), and I loved being able to get to the other side of the country in only a few hours. I could be in Seoul in under 2 hours and to Busan in about 3 hours, including time on the bus to get to the KTX station. Yesterday, I took a 3-hour bus ride from Daejeon to Incheon, and the bus was clean and comfortable. They even played arrival music when we were getting to the airport. None of that even includes the nice subway stations, which have bathrooms and often smell better than ones in Chicago. I’ll never know why Haeundae station always smells like fresh cookies, but I’ll never complain either. (Except that it makes me want chocolate chip cookies, but if I’m being honest, I always do.) Did I mention that public transportation is affordable? I’ll miss transportation here so much for so many reasons.

6. Service – There are several things that fall under this. For one, places want you to keep coming back, so they give you free stuff all the time. The lady at my favourite boutique always gave me free stuff – from socks to apples to a ride home when she saw me at Home Plus once. I only shopped there every few months and didn’t always buy anything, but she knew me and always gave me stuff. I always got the same girl when I went to the bank, also only every few months, and she always gave me tea and even remembered that I went to London last month. Tonight I decided to actually eat at a Korean restaurant for my last meal here. I found a place with bibimbap. I ordered, ate, and paid in 20 minutes. In Korea, there’s no waiting around for food. (This goes back to the rushed culture. It does have its perks.) I received a big bowl of food and sides, as is customary in Korea restaurants, for under $4. Taxis are also generally cheaper. Pretty much everything is cheaper than in the US. Also, there’s no tipping – and taxes are included – in most places, so you don’t have to worry about figuring out percentages or any extra money. Because people aren’t working for tips, you don’t have someone bothering you every 5 minutes, and you can just press a button or call for help (which I’m still not good at doing) if you need something. Let’s just add buttons to the list of things to implement worldwide.

7. Safety – When I told people I was moving to Korea, everyone worried about my safety for obvious (but incorrect) reasons. I always had sort of a “If it happens, it happens, but it probably never will” attitude about it. The fact is that I feel safer in Korea than I ever have anywhere. I don’t have to worry that I’ll be raped or mugged if I’m walking alone at 3 AM. Korea has some of the strictest gun control in the world. When someone actually does get shot, it’s usually someone who was in the military and makes big news because it never happens. The last mass shooting in Korea was before I was even born. I don’t even hear much about petty crimes. That’s not to say things like sexual assault and petty crimes don’t happen, but it seems rare, and there are safety measures in place, such as safe havens or buttons to press for help. The only times I’ve ever felt unsafe in Korea is with drivers. Traffic laws are more of a suggestion, it seems, and drivers often don’t yield to pedestrians. Cars park completely crooked, often on sidewalks and crosswalks. As long as you watch closely, you’re fine.

8. Celebrity – This one has its advantages and disadvantages. I think we all know I’m meant to marry a minor celebrity, right? (It’s funny for someone who wants neither fame nor fortune to say, but it’s just a fact.) Okay, I’m being facetious, but actually, I got rather used to being approached all the time. Sure, there were times I wanted to do my grocery shopping without being asked for my phone number or didn’t want to answer a million personal questions from a total stranger or didn’t want to be the poster girl in someone’s “I met a foreigner” picture. But I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t fun sometimes.

Adjusting to life as a former celebrity will be so difficult.

There’s no way I could sum up what this year has been to me in a blog. There are so many things I love about Korea, even though there are also things I don’t like. That’s true anywhere you live. Leaving tomorrow won’t be easy, but I know I’m ready now. There will be an adjustment (and reverse culture shock), but I’m moving onward and upward, as always. I’ll leave Korea with a deep love in my heart and fond memories of its wonderful people. I regret nothing about this experience, and I’m eternally glad I did it.

I started this blog with the intention of writing about Korea, and I intend to keep it open to write about other things. I’m not entirely sure what I’ll write about in the future, especially seeing as I already have an entertainment blog, but I guess we’ll see where life takes me.

Thank you to my friends in Korea for making this experience as incredible as it was. I love you all dearly and will miss you terribly. Thank you to my friends and family at home. I couldn’t have done it without you, and I’m ecstatic to see you all soon. Lastly, thank you to everyone who has followed me on this crazy ride.

Always.

3 Things

“The third thing that I do now when my world caves in is I pause, I take a breath and bow, and I let the chapter end. I design my future bright, not by where my life has been. And I try, try, try, try, try again.” -Jason Mraz, “3 Things”

My co-teacher recently asked me to write a letter to my middle school (grades 7-9 in the US) students for the school newspaper. All I was told was to give them some advice and make it about a page, so I decided to write whatever I felt. We all know I’m not into the whole brevity thing, so the hardest part was keeping it one page with simple language.

While writing, I thought about the things I’ve noticed during my time in Korea. Koreans are often discouraged from being individuals or too creative. The group mentality is good in some ways, but it also makes people hesitant to break away from the pack. Their parents might not like me for it, but I used this letter to try to encourage them to be their own person and think for themselves.

The other thing I thought about while writing the letter was my own life. I have a relatively vague recollection of middle school, which we all know is such an awkward time for everyone. I’m still waiting to grow out of my awkward stage and have accepted that I probably never fully will. I thought about where I’ve been, what I’ve done, and what I’ve been through. I thought about all those beautifully complicated life lessons. Mostly, I thought about what I would have wanted someone to tell me when I was their age.

In some pathetic way, I think it ended up being more of a letter to my past self (or a reminder for my future self) than it is to my students, as most of them will probably never read it, anyway. I had a couple of requests to post it somewhere for friends/family to read, so here it is, unedited in all its cliché-ridden glory. Because of the constraints, it doesn’t flow as well as I’d like, either, but just remember that it’s for a bunch of teenagers who don’t speak English as their first language and love stuff like this. Warning: This letter is saturated in cheese. Read at your own risk.

Dear Students,

It’s hard to believe the school year – and my time in Korea – is almost over. You’ve all grown so much, and you’ll continue to grow and learn more about yourselves in the next few years. You will see, do, and be so many things that you can’t even imagine right now. If someone had told me 5 years ago that I’d live in Korea, I wouldn’t have believed them. Life can take you unexpected places and make you do things you thought you’d never do. You’ll see this in the next few years. Some of you are starting high school soon. You won’t be the big kids in school anymore. You may feel nervous or unsure of yourselves and your place in life, but you will be okay. I have some advice that I hope will help you during this uncertain time in your lives. I gave you three rules on the first day of class that also apply to life: 1) Listen. 2) Be kind. 3) Try.

Listen. Always listen to your heart. Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing. Do what you feel is right. Find what makes you happy and do it. Trust your feelings, and you’ll never go wrong. You don’t always have to follow what everyone else does or believes. Don’t change for anyone but yourself. Be yourself, and don’t be afraid to be different. People who are “different” are some of the most interesting people you can be and meet. Listen to other people to learn more about them and hear their stories, but always follow your own path. Listen to your own heart and chase after your own dreams. Question what you don’t know or trust, and make up your own mind. When you find something or someone you love, love it with all you have.

Be kind. A little kindness can make a big difference in someone’s life. You never know what problems someone else might have, and being kind can mean more to them than you know. You have nothing to lose by being kind. People will not always be nice to you, and they will not always like you. That’s fine. You can still be a good person and be kind to others. Treat others with the respect you want. Always inspire others and be inspired.

Try. This is the most important rule. Life does not always work out the way you want. Never stop trying. Live your life without regret. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes and take risks. You are going to make so many mistakes in your life. If you spend too much time thinking about what you could have, should have, would have done, you will never grow. Appreciate the present and focus on your future. Learn from your mistakes and move on. This is the most important lesson I’ve learned in my own life. Don’t expect anything to be given to you. You have to work hard for what you want. If you do, you will appreciate it so much more when you get it. I say this from experience. There will be times when life will be hard. Be open to all that life has to offer, good and bad. Things will happen that you are not ready for or that seem bad at the time, but sometimes the most wonderful things can come from the bad. You never know how something will affect your life for years to come, but it’s up to you to let it change you for the good. One choice can lead you to a life you can’t imagine. You’ll know when it does. Accept change. Change will come whether you want it to or not, so stay positive when it does. Never stop trying to make your life and the world better, and no matter what happens, never give up.

I hope this advice helps you, and you remember it as you go through life. Thank you to everyone at [redacted] for helping to make this the best year of my life. I will remember everyone with love. I wish you all the best and know you will make me proud. Keep fighting! 

                                 -Teacher Lindsey

OH!
THE PLACES YOU’LL GO!

You’ll be on your way up!
You’ll be seeing great sights!
You’ll join the high fliers
who soar to high heights.
    -Dr. Seuss, “Oh, The Places You’ll Go!”

 

“Winston Churchill said that, I think.”

 

Feed It

“There’s a place in the sun that belongs to everyone. You can feel it inside. It goes straight on through to the other side. And we’re hitching a ride. There’ll be room for everyone. We’re not saying goodbye. We’re just saying hello to a better life.” -The Candyskins, “Feed It”

Since I decided to come to South Korea, many people have asked me the same question: “What are you going to do next?” My EPIK contract is for a year, ending in February 2016. Now is the time to answer that question. I was asked months ago about renewing my contract, and I told my co-teacher that I would not renew because I wanted to move to Busan. I’ve mentioned before that I’m not happy with my province’s curriculum or my town. I’ve also never wanted to teach middle school. That leaves a few options: Reapply for EPIK and hope to get into a city and school I want, apply for a hagwon (private school), or go home. It’s certainly not a decision to take lightly.

There’s a lot to think about.

For months, my plan has been to reapply to move to Busan with EPIK. If it didn’t work out, I would find a hagwon there. I love Busan, and most of my closest friends are there. The downside to EPIK is that to move anywhere outside my province, I have to complete the entire application process again. Even though I’m already here, there’s no guarantee that I would get elementary school or the city I want. They could say, “This woman has been teaching a special program in middle school! She’d be great for high school!” (They’d be wrong.) Still, I started on my application, willing and planning to take a chance.

The time has come to finish my application. As I wrote on my essays, I reflected on my time in Korea, my wants, and my needs. I’ve always believed that every choice we make, sometimes even little ones, can change the course of our lives in ways we can’t anticipate. I think of how one seemingly minor event/decision can lead to another, and that one leads to another, and before you know it, you’re in Korea. (The film Mr. Nobody does an excellent job of showing how choices drastically alter our lives.) I’ve been doing some soul-searching, which is easy for self-aware souls, and I’ve made a decision.

I love South Korea. I’ve done things here that I’ve always wanted to do, things I never thought I would do. I’ve faced fears and crossed items off my bucket list. At the age of 30, I’ve changed in ways unimaginable. I’ve made memories and friendships that will last a lifetime. My friends and I have had this shared experience, something that only people who have done this can truly understand. I am forever indebted to Korea. No matter where I go or what I do, it will always have a special place in my heart. I think you can guess where this is going…

This realisation me hit like a brick.

As much as I love Korea, it’s time for me to move on and have different experiences and learn new lessons somewhere else. The longer I stay, the more I’ll feel I’m putting my life on hold. I’m getting too old for that, and I can feel the clock ticking on certain things. It took me coming to Korea to figure out how to achieve some of my goals. I can only hope that my time in Korea will get me closer to them, but I know Korea itself cannot provide what I want and need in the long run. I have no future here, so I need to move on to a place where I could have one. If I stayed, I would really be staying for the money and to continue to procrastinate, which I’m all too good at doing.

So what’s next? One of my goals for a long time has been to live in the UK, but I never knew how to make it happen. My family has always been drawn there for some reason. My sister went to postgrad in London, and my brother got married in Scotland and currently lives in London. I’ve always felt a sense of longing when I’ve left the UK after visiting or when I watch my favourite British series/films. I’ve effectively adopted British English, mostly due to the fact that the majority of my close friends in Korea use British English. (Plus, it makes sense to use it when every other country does, except the US.) I’ve realised that now is the time to take yet another leap of faith.

I’m almost afraid to tell people of my plans because I don’t want to jinx them, but the questions will inevitably come if I don’t. Initially, I didn’t want to go back to social work, but I’ve realised that whether I am working in it or not, I will always be a social worker in heart. I was just thinking today that boundaries in Korea are non-existent and how I had a hard time with self-disclosure when I came here. (I still do.) I’ve also been thinking that in the right setting and with more education, I could potentially be a good social worker and enjoy it.

I was recently informed that there is a shortage of social workers in the UK. They also appear to be paid better than social workers in the US, though that’s likely because many people don’t want the job. My plan is to apply for postgrad in the UK to get my Master of Social Work, hopefully followed by a job there. This seems like the most feasible way to move there. Of course, there is a chance that I won’t get in anywhere, but I would hope that my four years of experience (including two years of management) in the field, good GPA, and experiences in Korea would only help my chances. Everything in life is a risk, after all.

With those risks, there’s still a lot to figure out to make this happen. I will likely go back to the States when my contract ends in February until I can leave for postgrad. The issue is that I don’t have a car or job there, but that would happen regardless of when I go back. I’ve also been out of school for almost 6 years and haven’t kept in touch with professors, so I hope that they either remember me and will write a letter of recommendation or that the places I apply will accept professional references. I’m still in the beginning stages of the process, doing research and making lists. It’s a lot of work, as postgrad will be, but if I can pull this off, I think it will be worth it.

I’m choosing to believe that everything will fall into place. Things have never come easily to me, but they tend to work out eventually, usually in weird, unexpected ways. If all else fails, my backup plan is still to apply for a hagwon in Busan. A year ago, my dream was to move to South Korea. I made that happen, and I have zero regrets. (I don’t believe in them.) It hasn’t been an easy decision to leave, but I believe it’s the right choice for me. With any luck, I’ll be writing from the UK a year from now, living out another dream. Time to do or die.

I hope.

A Thousand Paper Cranes

-Mono, “A Thousand Paper Cranes”

Although some might consider teaching in South Korea to be a “holiday from real,” anyone who has actually taught would likely have a different opinion, especially if they have a curriculum as challenging as mine. By the end of the semester, teachers are just as ready for summer break as the students. For many teachers in Korea, this is the first time in our lives that we’ve had both the money and the time to travel. Some teachers went home for their breaks, and others travelled throughout the country. Many of us, however, jumped on the chance to see more of Asia.

I needed to get out of Korea for a few days, so I was willing to go just about anywhere. I never really had much interest in going to Japan, even though it’s the easiest “not Korea” country to visit. It’s not that I didn’t want to go there, just that it was never a place I felt that I had to visit, partly because I thought it’d be too much like Korea. I considered some other places and almost went somewhere alone, but in the end, the stars aligned for me to go to Japan with my friend, Grayson. As we planned our trip, I was increasingly keen to go, but it was still really because I needed to get out of Korea for a few days.

“It’s French for ‘Let’s go!'”

I didn’t sleep much the night before our early flight to Osaka (Thank you, love motel noise!), but by that point, I was so excited I didn’t even care. I just hoped I’d be able to sleep that night, especially since I’m weird and have trouble sleeping in a room with other people. I was deliriously exhausted and excited at the same time. When we arrived in Japan, I got connected to the airport wi-fi until I picked up my sim card. Our trip was already getting off to a great start with a text I’d received: I was an aunt! My precious niece Layla was born while I was flying. Needless to say, I was ecstatic and instantly felt glad that I’d opted to get a sim card to stay in touch with my family. With the excitement of everything, I could barely even think. Still, we managed to get everything we needed at the airport relatively quickly but were so hungry that we decided to get something there before embarking on the long journey to our first destination.

I was never been a big fan of Japanese food and didn’t want to eat it for every meal there, so we looked around to see what was there. I’m pretty sure I shrieked when I saw the sign: Pancakes! Anyone who has spent time with me since I’ve been in Korea knows how important this was to me. I’ve tried to get pancakes in Korea more times than I can count and have always failed for one reason or another. Japan: 1. South Korea: 0.

I certainly can’t argue with that.

After some of the best pancakes I’ve ever had, we got on our first train to go to Koyasan. My brother and sister-in-law stayed in Koyasan when they visited Japan a few years ago and recommended a temple stay. We used a company that booked us in a shukubo (temple) called Daien-in. I was surprised at how beautiful it was for only about $100/person. We got there just in time to get settled a bit before dinner, which was included. We both kept saying how happy we were that we decided to do the temple stay because we didn’t know of any other foreign teachers who did a temple stay in Japan. It felt like we were a bit off the beaten path and were having a once in a lifetime experience. Our room was very nice with a beautiful courtyard view.

Dinner was a typical Buddhist vegetarian meal. I’ve developed trust issues in Korea because I’ve been deceived many times, so it was refreshing to be able to eat everything without worrying if it was really vegetarian.  My brother and sister-in-law (who is also a vegetarian) told me that the shukubo meals were some of the best they had in Japan, and I had the same feeling. I didn’t know what everything was, but I tried everything, even (accidentally) the eye-watering Wasabi. It was quite a feast, and it made us both look forward to breakfast, which was not as good but still lovely.

Feast at the shukubo. All of this was just mine!

After dinner, we hung out in the room until it was time to bathe. I’ve been to Korean spas before, so I wasn’t nervous about bathing with other women. My only concern was that I’d heard that tattoos were frowned upon in Japan, even more than in Korea, and I was worried I’d offend someone. It didn’t seem to be a problem, and after a long day of travelling, the hot tub felt especially nice. After bathing, we talked and listened to music for a while until bedtime. I knew we’d be sleeping on Japanese mats, but I was expecting thin blankets, like the incredibly uncomfortable ondol at pensions in Korea. I was pleasantly surprised because they were probably more comfortable than my own mattress in Korea. I didn’t feel like I was sleeping on a hard floor, and the buckwheat pillows provided great neck support. I still didn’t sleep a whole lot, but I slept more than I thought I would, so I was happy. Japan: 2. Korea: 0.

We woke up early on Saturday to try to go to the prayers. We were told we could come and go as we pleased, but the room was so packed we couldn’t get in. We decided to just walk around the temple a little bit until breakfast. After breakfast, we checked out the town a bit before leaving for Nara. There wasn’t a lot to see, so we didn’t spend much time there.

While we were waiting for the bus to take us to the cable car, we met an old Japanese man, who spoke decent English. He told us how he had just prayed at a temple nearby, then pulled out a flask. It took all I had to not die of laughter, especially when he offered it to Grayson later on the cable car. He was very fascinating, though, and told us about all the places he (supposedly) travelled and things he (supposedly) did. We ended up meeting him again on a train later, and he showed us pictures of his deceased family. It was quite special, and I have a feeling we made his day, too.

This was the guy!

Eventually, we made our way to Nara. I was looking forward to Nara more than anything because I’d heard that deer roam freely in Nara Park. They’re my second favourite animals and are very special to my mami, sister, and me. We consider them good luck. We checked in at our hostel, ate lunch, and then headed to the park. I was disappointed because I expected there to be a bunch of deer, but we only saw a few. Still, we hung out there for a while before relaxing at the hostel for a bit.

The hostel guy told us there was a fire ceremony at the park, so we decided to go back to look for it. We never found the ceremony, and we just wandered, even though we were walking against the crowd. We came upon a different part of the (surprisingly big) park we’d completely missed earlier. I found a couple more deer, and though it was dark, I suddenly saw hundreds of glowing eyes! I tried to get pictures but couldn’t get good ones in the dark, so we agreed to come back the next day. We continued walking and found a cool cemetery, temple, and a pond, all of which were beautiful at night.

For me, this is heaven.

On Sunday, we moved to a hotel, which was a nice change from the hostel. We explored beautiful Nara and through the market before heading back to the park. I was a bit like a kid, so excited to feed the deer, and I took so many pictures. I think I had to be dragged out of there.

There was a restaurant called Nino that we wanted to go to for dinner ever since we saw it on Saturday, but it was always closed. I’m not sure why we were so set on it, other than that they had Italian, but we were disappointed every time they were closed. I guess we have good intuition because we finally got to go there for dinner, and it was perfect. The food was amazing, and the staff was super nice. We were sad that they were closed on Monday because we wanted to go there for lunch. We actually stayed and drank for a while just because it was so nice.

On Monday, we traded Nara for Kyoto. I didn’t know much about it, except that it was bigger, so I went without expectations. It was love at first sight. As crazy as it sounds, it reminded me of London for reasons I can’t explain. Our hostel, which was a cool, old theatre, was very close to Nishiki Market, so we spent most of the afternoon shopping and exploring that area because the market seemed endless. We were going to try to meet up with a friend after dinner, but it didn’t work out. We ended up going to an area by the Kamogawa River. There was a musician playing beautiful, soothing music on the bridge, and we were so entranced that we both bought his CD and took a picture with him. We spent the rest of the night hanging out by the river, listening to music, and enjoying being able to actually see the stars.

The view from our spot at the Kamogawa River. There were a bunch of people on the other side, and we couldn’t understand why we were nearly the only ones on our side when ours was clearly better.

Tuesday was my last full day in Japan, but I still had a few things I wanted to do. Besides Nara Park, the only other thing that was really on my list of things to do in Japan was to see Fushimi Inari Shrine. I was somewhat afraid that it wouldn’t live up to the hype, but it was mystical and stunning to see in person.

Pictures really don’t do it justice.

The only way the shrine could have been better is if there were fewer people. It was quite crowded, making it difficult to get some of the pictures I wanted. We managed to find a few places that seemed to be neglected by other people for some reason. My favourite was where they had origami cranes. It was positively breathtaking. The legend is that if someone makes 1000 paper cranes, a wish will come true. It made me think of the Web series “Emma Approved,” in which a character called Martin wanted to make 1000 paper cranes “in an explosion of better feelings.” (I won’t spoil it, but if you watch the series, you’ll see how his quest goes in the end.) I thought of how I would like to make 1000 paper cranes myself in hopes of my own wish coming true. Maybe someday I will. Grayson told me about an instrumental song called “A Thousand Paper Cranes” by a Japanese band called Mono. Though I can’t speak for both of us, seeing this at the shrine definitely had a profound impact on me. It’s one of those moments I like to think I’ll remember forever.

A thousand paper cranes for one wish…

We did a little bit of shopping after the shrine, including buying chopsticks with our names engraved on them. I also wanted to find a yukata or kimono. I never thought I’d buy one, but after wearing yukatas at the temple, we both wanted one. Grayson had already bought his, so we looked around near the shrine and then at Nishiki Market for one for me. I found some that I liked, but a lot of them seemed to be pretty generic. I saw one on Monday that I loved but didn’t buy then because I wanted to keep looking. I couldn’t get it out of my mind, though, so we set off on a mission to find it.

After looking for quite some time, I was losing hope. Grayson mentioned that maybe it was in Nara, and then I started thinking I was going crazy and feared that I had, in fact, seen it in Nara. I almost bought another one I didn’t like nearly as much. I couldn’t even remember exactly what the one I loved looked like, except that it was green and unique, but I could picture the store and knew I would know the kimono if I saw it. I felt bad for dragging Grayson around to look for it, and I was just about to give up when I saw the store. I made a mad dash for the store, and thankfully, the kimono was as gorgeous as I’d remembered. I tried it on, and we both agreed that it was perfect. (Maybe he was just tired of looking.) Every time I saw a woman wearing a kimono after that, I said, “Hers is pretty, but mine is prettier.” I only speak the truth.

Me trying on my kimono

After another busy but successful day, we decided to explore Gion Corner, where the geishas work. It was rather quiet, but I saw a couple of geishas go by in a taxi. We walked around the area for a while, then walked back to the Kamogawa River. I wanted to try sake before I left, but we were both in the mood for a low-key night. We decided to get some sake and beer at a liquor store and hang out by the river again. We went back to the same spot as the night before and played great music for each other again, including “A Thousand Paper Cranes” by Mono. It was the perfect end to a great trip.

We may not have had a chance to see all that Japan had to offer, but I’ve no doubt I’ll be back. To my surprise, I really fell in love with Japan. The people (with the exception of one woman on my last day) were amazingly nice and never gave us a second glance, like they do in Korea. I’d heard that they don’t speak as much English there, but I didn’t experience that. All the food was amazing. Several of the people I met understood what “vegetarian” meant more than Koreans do. It was an absolutely beautiful country. I was a bit nervous about the trip before we left, but I think it was one of the first trips in my life where nothing really went wrong. I’d hoped that being out of Korea for a few days would make me appreciate it more. Instead, I appreciated Japan more than I ever expected. It made me crave more adventure and wonder where I’ll go next. I don’t know what my future will bring, but I guess I’ll figure it out while I’m working on my thousand paper cranes…

Yes! I Am a Long Way From Home

“If the stars had sound, it would sound like this. The punishment for these solemn words can be hard. Can blood boil like this at the sound of a noisy tape that I’ve heard?” -Mogwai, “Yes! I Am a Long Way From Home”

No matter how excited you are or how much you prepare for an experience like this, culture shock is inevitable. It’d be naive to think that moving to a new country with a completely different culture would not result in culture shock. I researched everything I could about Korea before moving here, including culture shock. In a way, it prepared me for what was to come. I figured that if I knew more about what to expect, I would be better able to recognize the signs and deal with them. Living it, however, is an entirely different story. When people post about their lives on social media, many tend to sugarcoat everything or make it seem like their lives are perfect. While living in Korea has been an overall positive experience for me that has changed my life in ways I never could have imagined, this will be a personal, honest reflection on some of the things that are not so shiny right now. It might not be pretty, but it will be raw. I hope it’ll help others who are going through culture shock now or will be soon to know that they are not alone.

The symptoms and length of the culture shock are obviously different for everyone. I read somewhere that the honeymoon period ends and culture shock often hits around 3-6 months in. I moved to South Korea in February, and I started experiencing it around May. At first, I was intrigued by all the new things, interested in the culture, and excited to meet anyone and everyone I could. I love Koreans! I love foreigners! New food! Isn’t it interesting how they (insert cultural difference here)? KOREA!!

Needless to say, the newness has worn off. Several of my friends and I have discussed being in the throes of culture shock right now. One friend asked me, “How do you know if it’s culture shock or if you just hate a place?” There is a fine line between the two sometimes, but culture shock is temporary. I still love Korea. (Most of the time.) It’s not perfect, but America certainly isn’t either. Another friend and I pondered how our feelings might change a year from now. Maybe we’ll say, “That time was rough, but I love Korea! Can you believe what we’ve done and what we’ve been through?” Maybe we’ll say, “I hate this place. I can’t wait to get out of here.” For now, I’m trying to live one day at a time.

A common sentiment when you’re dealing with culture shock

So what does culture shock look like? For me, it started with depression. It comes and goes, but there are times when I need to be alone and not see anyone. Sometimes I get emotional for no reason or have mood swings like I never did before. I might be fine one minute and want to cry the next. This, I know, is normal, but that doesn’t make it any easier to go through it, especially if there are other things happening in your life at the same time. I still remember when I received a card in the mail that was signed by about 15 friends in Chicago, and I sobbed uncontrollably for an hour. That moment is pretty much the best way I can describe culture shock – an extreme reaction to a beautiful (and sometimes not so beautiful) gesture.

Since I’ve been here, I haven’t been homesick exactly. I’ve never said, “I want to go home now!” I have missed people (and sometimes food.) I’m going to be an aunt next month, and I hate that I won’t get to see my niece until 2016. Things like that make me wish I could be in two places at once but only for that, not because of “home.” Two symptoms of culture shock can include idealizing your own country/culture or obsessing about your new one. I don’t think I’ve really done either of those. I’ve avoided Korean entertainment, but I also don’t appreciate America more. I just appreciate the people in my life – here and there – more.

Another symptom of culture shock is anger. When you’re experiencing culture shock, sometimes all it takes is a person looking at you the wrong way to drive you insane. I’ve mentioned Korean surprises before, and what I once saw as a challenge has become an annoyance and source of stress. Granted, there are good Korean surprises sometimes, but they don’t happen as often as the bad ones. I’ve become annoyed and stressed when I’m told to do something at the last minute and expected to do it perfectly in no time at all. I know I need to adjust to the Korean way of thinking, but it gets tiring when you are expected to bend all the time but aren’t afforded the same consideration.

Sometimes that’s all it takes to make your blood boil.

There are other norms that I’m still not used to, no matter how hard I try. I know it’s selfish, but sometimes I just want to eat my Dr. You bar without hiding in the bathroom because I don’t want to share. I also don’t understand the appeal of eating the same food every meal every day, and that’s not an exaggeration. I had a “traditional Korean breakfast” the other day. Spoiler alert: It’s the same as lunch and dinner. My school has been sweet and accommodating about my vegetarian needs, even if they don’t really understand them. I even had a teacher buy me a ton of seaweed because he was worried about my diet. Still, I’m getting sick of rice and kimchi, and my response when friends ask what kind of restaurant I want to go to is pretty much “not Korean.” I can’t say how many times I’ve been told to just pick the meat out of something or they haven’t understood why I don’t eat the soup. I’ve also gotten the “You don’t need to lose weight” thing a lot. I’ve never dieted a day in my life, but the assumption is always that I’m a vegetarian to lose weight because so many women here are obsessed with weight.

Along those lines, it can be difficult to be an individual here. I’ve been told, “We don’t want to be too creative. It’s easier to be told what to do.” Korea is a culture of sameness to the point that couples often dress the same. I’ve always marched to the beat of my own drum, so it’s difficult for me to wrap my head around some things. There’s definitely a very high value placed on appearances. Plastic surgery extends beyond Seoul, and people get it as young as middle or high school. It’s sometimes more difficult to find women who haven’t had plastic surgery than women who have. There are some ways I’ve had to conform (I always cover my tattoos and shoulders, unless I’m in a big city), but the pressure on them to always look good and be perfect makes me sad for them.

So those are the ways I’ve been experiencing culture shock… What am I doing about it?

Don’t just wait for the shock to pass. Take action!

The first thing includes this blog. A few weeks ago, I realized that I missed having a real creative outlet. I can’t paint in my tiny apartment, so I had to find another release. In addition to this blog, I started a music blog called A Melody, The Memory started writing handwritten journals. I highly recommend a creative outlet for anyone going through culture shock. I can’t express the cartharsis I feel when I write, even if no one ever reads it. Writing isn’t a release for everyone, but if you’re going through culture shock, find your therapy.

Another thing I’ve been doing is getting out and trying new things as much as possible. I had a bloody (quite literally) blast this past weekend when I went ziplining, and I’m going to the Boryeong Mud Festival in a couple weeks. I’m also planning a trip to Japan next month, which has given me something else to focus on for a bit. It’s so important to always have something to look forward to, and it doesn’t even have to be anything big. I live for the weekends. That said, this might sound like a contradiction, but I also make sure I have at least one weekend a month to stay home and do absolutely nothing. It’s easy to get caught up with the trips and parties, but I can’t stress enough how important it is to take time to decompress.

The most important thing I’ve done is build real relationships. Many of us are in the same boat right now, and we need to lean on each other. When I first got here, I wanted to be friends with everyone. A lot of foreigners who have been here longer than I are extremely bitter, at times hateful, and some would not even acknowledge me when I smiled at them. Others I liked at first but then realized they were obnoxious or pretentious. Life is too short to waste on people with negative energy. I have one dear friend in my town, and we have weekly dinner dates where we talk about everything under the sun. We can have real discussions or talk about celebrities without missing a beat and without judgment. I’ve never needed a lot of friends, but I am so grateful to have her in my life. Wherever you live, I recommend a weekly dinner date with a close friend.

We all need this.

I’ve always been a believer in fate, destiny, and serendipity. As an introvert with (I think) amazing instincts, I don’t always connect easily with a lot of people. I’ve had some close friends in my life, but I also feel like I had to come across the world to find my people, though I like to think we found each other. For someone like me, it’s rare to find someone I am comfortable with, have a lot in common with, and who I can also have real, deep, intellectual conversations (or nonsense conversations) with. I sensed a connection with a couple people here the first time we met. I couldn’t explain it, but something made me immediately say, “This person is meant to be in your life.” That kind of connection is rare and has only happened a few times in my life. I honestly hope I can say I’ve made some lifelong friends here.

Yes! Things are hard for a lot of us right now. Yes! I did vent a lot in this post, but that’s part of the process. Yes! I am a long way from home. Things are not all good or all bad, just different. It will take time to adjust, but I will adjust. There will be good days and bad days, just as there are anywhere. I will not let culture shock get me down or make me bitter. I will have amazing times with beautiful people, and I will have days where all I want to do is Skype my mom and cry. But I will be okay. I will come out of this on top. I will laugh hard, cry hard, and love hard. I will continue to make memories that I will remember for the rest of my life. Like one of my favorite Jason Mraz songs says, “It’s when you cry just a little but you laugh in the middle that you’ve made it.” I will live by that, and I will make it.

“If you can’t laugh at yourself, life is going to seem a whole lot longer than you’d like.”