Explorations (2)

Once I entered university, I found my world changed dramatically.  My mom is protective so this transition was a critical point in my personality development.  The first year was particularly hard and I was depressed a lot with no one to turn to.  Not only was I struggling with my sexuality, I was overwhelmed by the school work and practice in the first year.  Just like everybody else, I needed to navigate the over-sized campus, handle new interpersonal relationships (status: awkward/getting better at), and deal with the  intellectual challenges with university level courses.  The one constant relationship I had was with my piano teachers.

Explorations (1)

Writing has fallen off my radar after my surgery.  I thought I would write more about my experience but somehow I couldn’t find the motivation to write.  Maybe it’s still too raw to process and I need time to let the whole 2+ years ordeal to sink in.  Maybe it’s the lack of energy that comes with waking up every morning to take my medication while tossing and turning in bed until exhaustion takes over.  There are just too many factors and the last thing I want to do is ruminate and let this anxiety grows.  When I’m ready to write about what I went through I think I’ll know.

My original plan after my surgery was to apply for the same counselling program in Hong Kong University in December 2020, completing the unfulfilled dream that was interrupted by my cancer diagnosis.  However, what is life without constant bumps on the journey?  With the recent political unrest in Hong Kong, it seems like a bad idea to go back now, especially with the precarious academic freedom in universities.

Needless to say, I was crushed.  After considering other alternatives, I’ve decided to take on the prerequisites to Canadian universities.  The first course that I’m taking is “Introduction to Theories of Counselling and Psychotherapy” from Athabasca University.  Most of the undergraduate courses take place online and have a 6 months time span to complete.  This course starts with an overview of various counselling theories and continue to discuss what constitutes a effective counsellor.  We are asked to keep a journal so that we can reflect on the questions in the textbook and the student manual.  This journal provides the foundation of a personal reflection paper that is due in the 5th or last month.  Instead of writing in a journal, I thought I would explore these questions in depth in my blog because they reflect the themes that I’ve explored in this blog.

A Quick Update

New year, new post?  It’s more of a coincidence.  Maybe I can attribute my renewed energy to the new year?  I was absent for a while, occupied with my second introductory psychology class, then at the end of October, I got a call from the transplant department.  That turned out to be the last call I received from the pre-transplant department.  It happened!  I had my surgery and so far things are steady, with lots of ups and downs.  I wanted to write about my experience during my hospital stay,  but I found myself struggling with my attention and energy, so I only wrote few words since the transplant.  As the new year starts, my wish is to write more as my body slowly gains renewed focus and energy.

The Middle Path (And a Quick Update)

Since I’ve been busy with my second introductory psychology class, I haven’t gotten to posting my entries.  So I want to use this opportunity to post something I’ve written for a discussion question on the topic of locus of control.  Before that, I’m still finding it hard to focus my attention completely for my readings and studying on top of my teaching.  At the same time, my energy level is still easily depleted.  I have an upcoming ultrasound and pre-liver transplant appointment in late October and beginning of November, so I’m a little stressed and anxious about the meetings since I still feel some (muscle? skeletal?) pain around my chest and liver area.  I’ve done some blood tests this morning and hopefully I’ll get the results soon and that will help alleviate some of the stress that I’m currently experiencing.  Now onto the post:

The Middle Path

When I first learned about Rotter’s notion of locus of control, I was intrigued but also ambivalent about the concept.  Locus of control refers to “an individual’s belief system regarding the causes of his or her experiences and the factors to which that person attributes success or failure.” [1].   Having an internal locus of control means the personal belief that internal motivation and hard work can overcome obstacles and lead to success; an external locus of control attributes to a person’s success to things he or she cannot control like fate or luck [2].  I completed the 13 questions questionnaire [3], but was frustrated by the black-and-white nature of the questions.  I ended up with a score of 3 indicating moderately high internal locus of control.  It did not reflect my experiences accurately because there were times that I felt things were out of my control in my life.  However, when I read more about the concept, I discovered that not only locus of control runs on a spectrum, it is also governed by situational, environmental, and developmental elements as well. [4]  With that clarification in mind, I can look back at how my locus of control had always shifted wildly between internal and external extremes until my early 30s.

In high school and university, I put a lot of pressure to be a good student and achieve success both academically and musically because I strongly believe that personal success will come if I work hard enough.  Having a strong internal locus of control academically had helped me with effective time management so I could plan my studies, music practice, and work without falling behind.  However, that also meant that I tried to not allow myself to fall behind and fall apart by having tight control on my schedule by quarantining my feelings of stress and anxiety.

At the same time, I felt that I didn’t have control on my career choices, family situations, and financial success.  Once I entered into the music program, I felt that my career was set because it didn’t allow much flexibility into exploration of other career choices.  I also felt that networking was not my forte so I blamed my lack of opportunities on my personality and other people’s “aggressiveness”.  Once I graduated and started to teach, I felt that it was hard to strike out on my own since I had to rent a space that’ll allow me to live and start a private teaching studio.  In my mind that meant living at home (and paying rent) would allow a safety net while starting a studio in the beginning.  The belief that most things in life were out of my control had subsequently led me to various levels of depression.

It wasn’t until my health ran into serious trouble, then I started to read more about facing death.  It is through constant learning and reflection that I was able to shift my external locus of control into a slightly more internal one in most areas of my life.  In Zen Buddhism, there is concept called the Middle Path that “can help an individual reach the highest dimension, mushotoku,” by avoiding the extremes ends of spiritualism and materialism. [5]  Since locus of control runs on a spectrum, I find myself more flexible and open to other possibilities when I stay in the Middle Path.  Instead of thinking everything as an “either-or” situation, the Middle Path allows me to not react instantly but gives me space to observe my emotions and find a solution.  I can adjust my locus of control in different circumstances while knowing that I will try my best but accept whatever the outcome would be.  For example, I can try my best in this course, but there will be an opportunity that I might not be able to finish it.  The silver lining would be I have done my readings so if I have to start the course again, I will be ahead and my effort will not go to waste.

[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/moments-matter/201708/locus-control

[2] Ibid.

[3] http://www.psych.uncc.edu/pagoolka/LocusofControl-intro.html

[4] http://changingminds.org/explanations/preferences/locus_control.htm

[5] https://www.zenlightenment.net/buddhist-principles/middle-way.html

Pride? (2)

Continuing from yesterday’s post Pride?(1), I want to dive right back into my thoughts since there are still swirling inside my head.  Am I really that unlovable?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  But I think it is important to accept a few things that cannot be changed.

1) Even though I don’t think cancer should prevent anyone from finding a loving relationship, it does take its toll on several levels.  First, my energy dramatically decreases at night, which makes it hard to schedule dates when most people get off work after 5.  Either I can’t focus all my energy on the date, or my mind starts to wander and I feel like I don’t remember a single thing about that person.  Also,  my fatigue limits the activities that I can do with the other person.  At the same time, my diet also limits what I can eat with the other person.  The other person might be understanding at first, but I cannot expect him only to go along with what I can do and eat.

Second, since I operate with as much transparency as possible when I first meet someone, I usually tell them about my cancer diagnosis and future liver transplantation within the first or second meeting.  I really don’t know if it’s the best way find a partner, but I believe that he has a right to know what he is getting into.  Yes, it might color his perception of me as a person and prospect unfavorably, but I think that’s just fair because then he can choose to run or explore.

At the same time, facing my own mortality puts finding love in perspective.  Nothing forces a person to immediately take stock of one’s life like having death knocks on your door.  My focus turns inward, trying to reassess what I’m doing with my life, going over my values, attitudes, beliefs, goals etc.  I want to find and discover what gives meaning to my life and what makes me happy while thinking about my environment and culture, taking into consideration how these choices might affect my family, friends, students, and social circle.  It doesn’t leave me much time, energy, attention, and effort to know another person with an open mind.  I want to go with my first impression.  And as we all know, developing and nurturing a relationship takes time, energy, and communication.  It hurts even more when you realize that person (be it a friend or a partner) might not be good for you, creating a toxic and hurtful environment for both of us.  So instead, I want to put myself first, to create my best self, because I might not have much time left in this world.

On top of that, my last point concerns the uncertainty of it all.  Even if I manage to develop a potential relationship, knowing that I might go into a long and arduous operation with a long road of recovery and possible risks of liver rejection, I am afraid of that pain and heartbreak that might come one day.  Is it worth starting something that might end up in tears and worse, eternal separation?

To encounter all those points, I have to remember all we have is the “here and now”.  If I meet a good match and something meaningful blossoms, I will let it runs its course because if I do have limited time on earth, I should enjoy every minute of it with people I love.  Being mindful of our minds wandering and wondering into the future or back into the past, I’m starting to ask myself “what do I have now?” more frequently whenever the loneliness, isolation, and constant striving blind my senses.  I want to end today’s post with quotation from Frank Ostaseski’s “The Five Invitations”:

“When we mistakenly attempt to pull ourselves out of the river of change, we wind up feeling increasingly alone, isolated, and afraid.  This causes a great deal of suffering at the time of our dying, but also right now in the middle of our lives today.  In the end, pursuing security leaves us feeling even more insecure.”

 

Pride? (1)

Posts and feeds on Facebook and Instagram about the Vancouver Pride Parade start to show up when it gets closer to August every year.  Of course I’m both pissed and terrified that my data is being collected and used so that Facebook can keep reminding me that I’ve looked at a particular night cream or counselling program prerequisites.  However, these ads about the pride parade (and the numerous events that come before and after the event) end up pushing me into a tailspin, falling into an existential black hole caused by my “singleness”.  Not just the ads, but the whole atmosphere that I’m supposed to celebrate my homosexuality with pride and joy.  If I’m not, or if I don’t care, then the questions come.

• If a part of me is not feeling the joy of the festivities, or if I don’t care, am I channeling internalized homophobia?   This is an important day/week/month for members of the LGBTQ+ community, I should be out there celebrating right?
• Part of me wants to celebrate and be in the crowd, but why am I letting work takes precedent over fun?  Am I not organized enough?  I should stand up to my students and say I need that day right?  Am I just working to compensate that I’m painfully aware that I’ll see people in groups, couples, and other happy people dancing and having “fun” while I’m single?  What if that’s not my idea of fun?
• Am I really that _____________ (unattractive/undesirable/poor/problematic/boring/weak/lazy/unmasculine/weird/different/etc.) so that I can’t attract people around my age to not just want to have sex with me and then throw me away?
• Why can other gay men enjoy successful and fulfilling relationships (or just a relationship) while I’m on the dating apps trying to find a single date?
• So in conclusion, there must be something wrong with me right?

These questions-and-answer cognitive patterns go on and on and on until I give up and start to agree with them—“Yes, there’s something wrong with me so I’m unlovable.  Because of that, I will never be able to find a partner in a loving relationship.  I deserve that because I dare to be different and enjoy my own drumbeat.  Other people won’t see the good qualities in me.”  Some years are better than others, but the feelings of isolation, jealousy, shame, exhaustion, stuck, and other toxic emotions, all rise up and march along the parade of my perceived undesirability.

Now, I’m well aware that the self-pity and self-loathing are essentially spilling all over the computer screen and onto the keyboard.  But these intense feelings get amplified when it comes to the month of pride.  When I’m supposed to celebrate my uniqueness and sexuality, I feel even more alone because I’m particularly vulnerable to the fact that my life is not where I want to be at this moment.  Last year August, I was recovering from my radiation treatment in July and went back to teach already so my mind was still grappling with this shocking news and the painful treatments.  I’m still trying very hard to stay strong and be okay, be supportive of family, friends, and students, study, trying to find dates, but part of me is still stuck in the alternate, “maybe” scenario.  I’m not saying I’m not grateful about my current life and enjoying the knowledge I’m discovering every day.  Sometimes I just want to share the little things that happen in my life, someone who is sincere and truthful about loving not just the good parts of me, but can put up with the rotten and repulsive side of me as well, someone who is not just a pillow in my bed that feels like a body but without the warmth.  Most importantly, I’m absolutely sure that I’m not the only one who feels that way from time to time.  It takes hard work and constant reminders that there is another way to feel about ourselves.  Someone just posted this on my Facebook feed that I feel compelled to share:

This resonates with me because my sense of worthiness is always a pendulum swing away from confidence to an invisible speck of dust.  The external factors that Brown described in the video have a tremendous effect on my self-worth.  I wanted to find out, as objectively as possible, what are the factors that are keeping me down.

 

 

 

 

 

Quick Update

I was planning to write my during my summer, but it turns out to be limiting my inspiration and motivation to write.  Even though I’ve started my summer schedule at the beginning of July, I’ve found that my energy level was low constantly because of interrupted and anxious sleep patterns.  Since I’ve condensed my teaching schedule, I found that it took a while to adjust to teaching earlier in the morning during weekdays.  Since I’m sleeping at my usual time and waking up constantly within a few hours for each sleep cycle, I usually wake up more tired.  Add to the fact that I have to get up earlier during weekdays, I cannot lay around in my bed and sleep in most of the time.  All this have exemplified in physical symptoms such as sore gums and throat, muscle aches, headaches, lack of energy to get through my day, easier slips into light depression and thus feeling less enjoyment at things. On top of that, the humming of anxiety in relation to the transplant is disturbing every aspect of my life.  I’m trying very hard not to let that influence many of my decisions, and sometimes I even forget that I’m a cancer patient waiting for a liver transplant.  But then when my energy level was so low that the “low batter” signal starts to flash uncontrollably, I have to recognize my limits and work around those limits, which can be incredibly demoralizing and frustrating.

However, I have to stress that there are days in which I feel a lightness and openness in my daily life.  I experience feelings of gratitude all over my body, heart, and soul, and I am thankful that I’m still here, on this earth, surrounded by people who love me.  The only problem is the swings between the two extremes are more pronounced, and it all depends on how much rest I get at night.

In the mean time, I think my goal is to better prepare myself for the change in terms of schedule and weather.  In less than a month, I have to go back to my fall and winter schedule, and the obvious advantage is I get to sleep in IF I feel like I need more rest.  Plus, I might be able to start exercising again since I’ve started and stopped intermittently that important part of my life for more than a year now.  At the same time, Vancouver will once again enter its more “grey” time of the year (with lots of cloudy days) and slowly descend into weather for thick and bulky jackets and mornings that make us want to stay in bed for another minute (and then another hour).

Also, I will be starting my second introductory psychology course (if I don’t get called in for the transplant), so I’m starting to read ahead, especially those longer chapters.  A more practical reason to read ahead is, during October, there will be a few days where I’ll be attending workshops on introduction to facilitation.  To be honest, I don’t really know the details of the workshops or if I’ll be able to handle the workshop materials, but I think it’ll be a challenge to help me engage in meaningful dialogues between different people since it is sorely lacking these days.  At the same time, it’s been an intention of mine to run expressive writing workshops for populations dealing with physical and mental distresses or illnesses (such as cancer).  So I really hope to write one last post before the end of August, and I’ll try to do my best to explore some strong feelings that I’ve been experiencing…

A Session with P

A couple days ago I met with my counsellor P, and I always look forward to the exchange that we have during our sessions.  One thing people don’t understand about seeing a counsellor or a therapist is, the relationship is time-limited.  The goal is not to see them indefinitely, until the day we die (or they die), but to gain enough self-awareness and discover the resources within ourselves to face our problems and dilemmas.  Of course we can always keep seeing them as much as we can afford to, but we also have to consider our financial resources as well.  In this case, I’m speaking about counsellors and therapists in private practices since their fees could be costly if we see them once every week.  I cannot speak about counsellors and therapists in government agencies, but I assume the time and sessions will be more limited since the workers face a huge workload in general.

So when I get to see P, I really treasure and value our time together since I can explore and work through the dilemmas that I have in a safe place without judgement and opinions that I didn’t ask for.  After our session on Tuesday, I didn’t even come close to finding a way out of my current crisis regarding liver transplant (3rd Call, and an Update).  However, I expressed to her my recent calmness and acceptance towards death (which I will possibly write about in the future).

3rd Call, and an Update

After my CT scan on the 11th of June at the BC Cancer Agency, I was ready to start my work day around 4 pm when a call came half an hour before the lesson.  It was a reminder that the transplant department has scheduled another CT scan.  I clarified that I just had one this morning, and the future scan might be a duplicate.  The clerk said she’ll check and call back.  A couple minutes before teaching, the same number called back, but on my home phone.  Instead of the same woman’s voice, it was a deep but slightly monotone man’s voice.  It was the hepatologist whom I’ve seen once many years ago. 

Goodbye Hong Kong

A week before my trip to Hong Kong in mid May, I went to see the transplant psychologist.  Having a wonderful experience with my counsellor P,  I looked forward to meeting up with the psychologist the first time I was referred to the transplant program.  Then I realized a psychologist can be a different creature.  And after this appointment, I can firmly say that even though she provided some food for thought, she was focused more on dealing with symptoms and treatment of psychological disorders than about guiding me with gentle reassurance about the choices I make in my life.  “I think you’re idealizing your potential life in Hong Kong.  I don’t think you’ll be able to go back and establish a life there after your transplant.  It is better to live your life fully here.”  No.  Maybe.  Yes, sure.

Hong Kong is changing more rapidly than I can imagine.  Last time I came back to visit was 2 years ago, and the discontent and hopelessness of the city have deepened even more considerably than before.  Yes, people still continue to live their lives, make money to save for an imaginary down payment for a 200 square feet apartment, fight for their last shred of freedom, but the overwhelming feeling of suffocation under the two governments and their humiliating ignorance of Hong Kong citizens’ needs continue to drown every citizen in despair and conflict.  So, why am I still drawn to this city again and again and why do I still want to go back and study and work there?