So, where’ve you been?

My last ever exam, the day I finished my studies, was on July 9th. That evening I gathered with a few good friends at a lovely café outside, drank, talked, laughed and tried to feel accomplished and adult-like. That still doesn’t work, but maybe once I turn the dreaded 25 I’ll stop feeling like I’m merely cleverly disguised as an adult. There wasn’t much time to let the diploma-feeling sink in anyway, since just two days later The BF and I left for our Cretan vacation. Since I’ve already described that in detail, I’ll move on to two weeks later, when we came back. A buttload of paperwork was waiting for me, since I had pushed off a lot for after the exam. Mainly there was the issue of my therapist formation. June 9th was the date of the interview at the institute and we were supposed to get an answer within two weeks. Needless to say, I spent the next two weeks running to the mail box every morning to check. And of course, the one day I didn’t is when it came. I was accepted for the fall course. Yay! This was such a huge relief! We had heard that there were about 50 applicants for about 10 spots and nobody could (or would) tell us what the criteria were. But I got through! I got a spot!

After clearing the matter of getting a spot at the institute, there still was the matter of getting a spot in a clinic. Because the formation has several parts, one of which is a year in a psychiatric clinic, for which we have to apply separately. We had gotten a  list of clinics that cooperate with the institute (you can’t just pick any which one), which I had combed through before hand. I narrowed the pick down to places that were less than 100 km away (since I have no car) or could be reached by train within less than an hour. Then I looked at the homepages, asked friends and generally tried to gather information about what kind of clinic they were. Astoundingly many of them worked after a system that looked completely out-dated to me. So in the end I had my three favorites to which I wanted to send an application. Before that, I met up with a friend in the same situation. I thought the more info, the better. Boy was I wrong. This friend of mine totally freaked me out. She said there were hardly any spots available, so I could forget actually picking where I wanted to go. I should feel lucky if I got any job at all, even if it ment spending a year in a clinic I knew I would hate. Fun times. And after calling through the list, she turned out to be right. One guy actually said they had way to many applications already – even though they had no available spots – and since I was the youngest, I didn’t even need to try. Nice. But I did anyway and managed to get invited to two job interviews after all. Both for UNPAID clinic jobs. And when I say unpaid I mean I would be getting zilch on top of diddly squat. No money for the work, no money for lunch, no money for transportation – BUBKES. And yet the situation we therapists-to-be are in is so FREAKIN MISERABLE that I was actually glad to have found these jobs. Both were in clinics I had done internships in and never wanted to return to again. So much for that. One had a broader concept, different patients, more responsibility and a more interdisciplinary team – but would cost me 1.500 € more a year and 1h30 a day in transport. So I took the other.

A day after the second job interview, I headed to my family in France, where I spent two weeks. I was kind of dreading this, since I know I get tense every time I meet back up with them and usually come back with more problems instead of feeling rested and refreshed like some other people do after a visit back home. But this time it went surprisingly well. I managed to talk to my mother and we spent time actually doing stuff, like visiting a farm with my little sister, who got to ride on a pony and learned how to make butter. We also went shopping, of course, but this time I actually had stuff to buy, and we also finally managed to clean out my old closet. Where I found lots of old memorabilia and other crap I couldn’t believe I had kept. Among other things, there were the old Michael Jackson videos. I watched them all, of course, but sadly the best one was broken. Never the less, it turned my little sister into a fan, too. The biggest surprise, though, was to hear that my big sister had actually taken up driving lessons. She was learning how to drive – in Paris. Can’t wait to see when she gets her license.

[To be continued]

Public vent of private affairs

This is probably going to come bite me in the ass later in life, but I just spent a week with my family and I need to vent. Since The BF gets it the rest of the time and, dear internet, YOU CAN’T STOP ME, I will relieve myself here. My mom just called to say they got home safely and everything comes screaming back to me. I really wish I had a pen and paper on me at all times to note the gems of sheer incomprehensibly that happens when she’s around, but alas I have not. So this is all from memory, before it gets pushed into subconsciousness by that strange mechanism that tries to keep me sane – repression.

I am duly aware that every normal person, at one time or another, gets annoyed by their parents. My deal is that I never went through puberty. Seriously, there was never a time when I got all rebellious, screamed I hate you and then slammed the door or stormed out only to return in the middle of the night. That’s what my childhood was like. Ok, jokes aside, it did happen that I got angry, slammed a door or two and even tried to run away once – at the end of childhood. But I was never insurgent or typically teenagery, because from the moment my father died (I was 11) our security was gone and my mother became the child my sister and I had to look after. I had this conversation with her (my older sister) while she was here, about how I’m really pissed of at realizing that although our mom taught us to be independent and self-sufficient (by not being there and letting us take care of ourselves), she certainly doesn’t serve as a feminist role-model. She always goes out and does the exact opposite of everything she says. It’s infuriating, especially since I don’t see her behavior ever since I moved out and only get her lip service. My sis was on to this way before I was, so she’s dealt with it by now. I’m still angry.

I get so angry that the moment I know she’s coming, my neck gets all tense. Even now while thinking about it, I can feel the muscle getting all scrunched up. How am I supposed to build a relationship with this person, when I never know where I’m at with her? Being blunt, direct or even honest isn’t an option. My family has as long as I can remember adopted the policy of not talking about things for harmony’s sake. The relationship with my sister has gotten much better since we talk openly about things, tell each other what’s going on and what our opinions are. My mom can’t do that. She’ll either flat out ignore what I’m saying or start bawling and shut down for several days. So when I’m not trying to be honest about what I think of her side of the story, I could always talk openly about myself, right? Wrong. Here again, she might even ask a question about my life, but she won’t listen to the answer. When I start up about something, she turns it into something about her. Even the results of my (slightly unsettling) blood sample that came in the mail yesterday: she stopped me mid-sentence and showed me her blood-type card and then kept on rambling from there.

So when it’s not about someone else and not about her (I don’t ask questions anymore and answer in one-word sentences, otherwise it’ll just upset her), it’s about the surroundings. Then all I hear is complaining. I know that’s what I’m doing right now as well, but this has a purpose. Nagging incessantly doesn’t.

“They should put little traffic lights at the bottom like in France, I can’t drive like this” – “They should forbid dogs from restaurants, it’s so unsanitary” – “They should ban people from smoking anywhere else than in their own apartment, the street is a public place too”.

And that’s not counting the innumerable times she tells me I should do this or that, because apparentlyI’m still three years old and living on my own for 6 years doesn’t count for squat. My seven year old little sister, on the other hand, is supposed to manage everything on her own – as long as it’s done the way our mother wants. Otherwise she has no shame of putting her back in her place, in public, in full volume. Everything must be accompanied by drama.

I could go on, but you probably all think I’m a terrible person by now, so I’m guessing this is enough. I’ll procede to numb myself with series and food now. Good day.

In an absolute quest to who-knows-what exactly

Four score and seven years ago… or, to be more precise, last Thursday… I had the most important exam of all my “career” so far. And since then, I’ve been trying to break out of the space-time-continuum that is the void of prep time. But what happened before the exam isn’t as interesting as what happened after it. It can actually be summed up in one phrase: I ate scraps, slept in regular hours and studied. Everything else went to hell. So once those groundhog days were over, I have been going back and forth between: I have to finally clean up the apartment, I have to take care of overdue paperwork, I have to buy real food, etc. and: screw it, I finally have some free time, let’s sleep in, pig out and watch series all day.

The day of the exam, however, was odd. This crucial turning point was on the one side filled with my own anxiety driven pressure (you better not screw this one up – it’s the most important ever!) and on the other side this weird feeling I’ve never felt before an exam – I’m guessing it was confidence? The last day of studying I had looked over all the monographies again, reread the lecture script, reworked the article I had chosen to present and recited my in-depth topic. Then it was five o’clock in the evening, and I didn’t know what else to do. Dito for the next morning. I wasn’t even my normal, shitty-nervous self, because this was the first time in history of learning that I didn’t have the feeling I should have done more. Because I couldn’t have done more. I had read the entire literature list (something I never usually do), had sit in over a dozen seminars in the course of my studies and actually understood and was interested in what I was learning. Totally weird, right?

So that morning I just sat around waiting – instead of frantically overlooking my documents – and went with a clear head to the university. The secretary had written an email the week before asking if she could bump up my schedule, which was a good thing because I hate waiting around the morning of an exam. But once I got there, nothing was moving. I stood outside the office for 35 minutes. That gave me enough time to go over the options: either I was tricking myself and should be nervous, because otherwise I’ll just think everything’s going fine until I fall flat on my face (which is what happened the first time I failed an exam), or I actually knew what I was doing and had every right to be confident. I wasn’t really trusting that last thought. But finally, at some point, it was my turn, and then the automatic brain kicked in. I sat there with crossed arms (I think it’s comfortable, but I am aware now that it probably looked grumpy) and just spew out one answer after the other. The presentation of the article, which should have filled 10 minutes, went into a 45 minute debate, going even into the newest research findings. The general questions that followed breached everything from manic disorder, neurotransmitter systems and epilepsy to virtual reality therapy techniques, the social bonding theory and what self-esteem has to do with the limbic system. I ruled. I nailed it. I got the best grade I ever had.

And yet I feel like I’m bragging and being obnoxious and since I hate those feelings I even have a hard time writing those thoughts. Even though many friends congratulated me afterwards and said I deserved it, I was able to feel proud for about a day before my guilty conscience reared it’s ugly head. When I got out of the exam – first of all, the professor announced my grade in front of several people in the secretary’s office and already I thought that was embarrassing because they might think I was one of those high-and-mighty nerds – but when I walked out to the street and called The BF I felt like Rocky in his famous “eye of the tiger” scene, or like a gorilla pounding on his chest. It felt great, really, and that’s why I posted it on every status of every online community I have. But then I started to rationalize: If I deserved this very good grade this time, didn’t I deserve it the other times? I had worked really hard then, too. But also: how couldn’t it have been such a good grade, since I had done everything possible to get there? See the problem is that I have what is called a depressive attributional style. When something goes well, I automatically assume it’s due to luck (external) on that day (variable) and in that exam (specific). When something goes wrong, I think it’s my own fault (intern) because I’m too dumb (stable) and can’t do anything straight (global).

I really have to work on that, to not put myself down, to find a way to be self-confident without the fear of being arrogant. So that’s why I’d like to follow the example of a good friend of mine (hi Jo!) and strengthen a positive view on things. Jolianna (see blogroll) has started a “things I love thursdays” series. But besides that she is one of the most positive people I know, always having a “glass-half-full” spin on things. Following her lead, I will start a category shortly in which I list things of the past week that made me happy. Stay tuned!