It's almost fractal, the way that complaining about my life ends up being the thing about my life that I want to complain about today. Recursive networks are pretty bad-ass, I have to admit.
So I was complaining about my compulsive book buying last entry. What that boils down to is that I have money to spend on books, I'm educated enough to have an interest in books with more words than pictures, and I'm too lazy to make time to read them. The first two issues here aren't even bitch-worthy; I ought to be thankful for it. The last is a personality flaw, but not one worth really focusing on, especially since all I have to do is step away from the computer and sit down with a book. It's entirely up to me how I spend my time, so why am I complaining about how I spend it?
But I didn't realize how petty it was (I knew it was petty, just not to the extreme degree that it actually is) until last week. I got an email from a student on Thursday explaining that she has mental problems (it's a translation artifact, she actually means psychological troubles, a nuanced but important difference) that make it difficult for her to see people. I had a friend in high school that developed extreme sociophobia, or whatever you call it when people get panic attacks when they interact socially with other people. She was a fun light-hearted person up until this problem, at which point she became housebound for at least 3 years, after which I've lost track of her.
Back to my student. She hadn't turned in her last two assignments (a paper proposal and outline) and was worried about her status in class. I'm a pretty tough teacher when it comes to deadlines (pure vicarous existence, I know, but I work best with a looming deadline), but I figured that I'd find out if she was getting help with the problem and cut her a little slack.
We talked after class and I found out that she had gone to the school counselor but wasn't able to talk to her about the problems. Turns out that medical records in Japan are essentially public, in that many jobs require a physical which includes all sorts of vitals and would also have information about psychological issues. This would preclude her getting a job, or at least she was worried about it. We talked a bit out the class and she seemed serious about wanting to get the assignments in and we worked out a plan where she wouldn't suffer the full late penalty. This concluded our discussion and we then walked down the stairs.
She mentioned that she had just got back from an 8 month study abroad in the US in Los Angeles and that many of her friends had graduated, hence leaving her alone in life in many respects. I commented that since she got back at the end of May she is most likely suffering from reverse culture shock, which is commonly more stressful and disorienting than the initial shock experienced when traveling abroad.
She agreed that perhaps this was part of it, but that she has had problems in the past as well. Turns out she is bulimic as well. This was a much more serious issue than I was expecting, and it came out kind of suddenly. I urged her to talk to someone, but she told me she can't talk to her mom because her older sister is mentally and physically handicapped, and she can't burden her mom with the additional stress of another daughter with problems. After hearing this news, I asked for some more clarification of the social phobia to which she explained that she is afraid to see people because she fears they'll criticize her looks or think she is ugly. Sheesh! She is a pretty good looking girl too, probably in the top 5 of the 23 students in my class.
I was a bit overwhelmed, both by the magnitude of the issue and the ease with which she was talking about it with me. I've often found that people talk to me about things; I don't know if she talks about this with other teachers or if there was something about me that made it easier for her here. Regardless, it was shocking to see a beautiful person trapped in a fucked up mental state. I gave her the best encouragement I could but I know that I'm not going to solve her problems with a 10 minute talk in the hallway at school.
Made me realize that my life is pretty good after all. Sure, we all have some sort of mental issue that could be called a problem, be it being too smart, too dumb, overly confident, lacking confidence, quirky, boring, whatever. But most of those "problems" are just natural human variation and aren't anything to worry about, unless you are neurotic. But some people allow these naturall issues to manifest in full psychological disfunction and end up with depression and eating disorders and all other sorts of stupid shit. I'm not blaming the victims here. It's more of a function of our innate pyschology not being suited for the world that we live in. By that I mean a world with radical extremes in social structure wherein we are constantly bombarded and manipulated with advertising quackery and PR spin. Something has to give, and its often the mind.
Posted by Nutrimentia at July 7, 2003 01:11 PM | TrackBack