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Wyskoczyłam
Wyskoczyłam z samolotu i jakoś mi się udało te pionowe trzy kilometry przeżyć. A bałam się bardzo, ponieważ ten rok był dla mnie bardzo trudny. Nie do końca byłam przekonana, czy skakanie z samolotów to akurat dobra metoda na odpoczynek po takim roku.
W pierwszym roku w Brystolu leczyłam się z samotności lat poprzednich, ale w tym roku to już zabrałam się: za nową pracę, za nową szkołę, za nowy dom i nową rodzinę (rodzice odeszli). Rodzice odeszli, ale straciłam też kilka ważnych mi w życiu osób i została głęboka pustka. Dlatego też bałam się bardzo tego skoku w jeszcze jedną pustkę…
Okazało się jednak, że w sumie skakaliśmy grupą – nie byłam w pustce i zdecydowanie nie byłam sama. Bardzo dobrze się mną znajomi i instruktorzy zaopiekowali. Trzydzieści osób wsparło mój projekt finansowo, więc za ich pieniądzę pomożemy teraz wielu młodym osobom w naszek okolicy. Czyli warto było.
Trudno jednak tak z dnia na dzień odpocząć po takiej przygodzie, co też jest raczej metaforą całego roku. Miałam tak ekstremalne sytuacje w tym roku, że trochę boję się kolejnego. A z drugiej strony to, co kiedyś było ekstremalne teraz jest moją pracą – w poradnictwie psychologicznym wszystko jest poważne, głebokie i bardzo czasami testujące.
Ale mam nową perspektywę na życie. Centrum grawitacji się zmieniło i nauczyłam się wielu innych perspektyw od moich znajomych z zawodu ale i od klientów. Życie jest bardzo zaskakujące i łączy nas więcej niż dzieli.
Jest więc OK. Odpoczywam po tym roku. Spisuję mentalne notatki. Pobolewam, ale też i bardziej się rozkręcam. Od września przyjmuję własnych klientów, więc życie znów się zmieni. Od listopada zmienić się może cały kraj. Ale nic nie jest stałą. Każdy krok może okazać się skokiem. Cieszę się więc bardzo, że nie czuję się już osamotniona.
Dziękuję za wsparcie!
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Silence
“I’ve begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own.”
Chaim Potok -
Protected: OTR Skydive update for supporters
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Storms
“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”
Haruki Murakami -
I will not
“There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.”
Jane Austen -
OTRSkydive
I am doing it. I am terrified, but I am doing it. OTR Bristol did a SkyDive last year but I wasn’t brave enough, because last summer I was still unable to cross the Bristol Suspension Bridge. Today I still sweat climbing the attic ladder, but I have conquered the bridge at least. I am obviously really worried about it but I also feel that is it exactly what I need right now to process all my grief connected to the losses of this year and the experience of severe social isolation from the past few years too.
There are a lot of reasons why this project is emotionally challenging for me. Doing the SkyDive is one thing, but I am also managing the OTR project, which means my role is to support others doing it too. I am also fundraising at OTR, which means I feel at least a little bit obligated to meet the fundraising goal – which after a move to a new city seems a bit hard. We do not have many friends in Bristol just yet. Basically for the next six months I will live and breathe the OTR SKyDive.
There is also a good chance that this fundraising event will distract me from a lot of emotional processes going on for me at the moment as I am emerging from the next counselling course and a pretty difficult year of Brexit and loss of both parents. I think that is exactly why I have decided to document my SkyDive journey publicly – to ensure that I am immersing myself in this emotional journey but also remain very kind to myself. Being actively engaged in this, but at the same time taking it easy will be my personal goal. I hope to heal, really. I healed a lot in the first year of our life here in Bristol, so this my next stage. I hope to move away from the anxieties and get back to the more adventurous and opinionated self. I hope to think about my dad a lot and celebrate the best of his legacy.
So here is what I do. I set up my SkyDive page, you can see the plans for the day below.
I set up my JustGiving page where I share updates on my journey:
I was very honest in my story description because I think I owe it to my supporters too:
This summer, a big group of OTR’s supporters are taking part in a skydive! This is exciting but also TERRIFYING!
I will be joining the team in memory of my Father, Hubert Korsak, who died this January. I really wish there was something similar to OTR Bristol when he was young to support him through his difficult marriage. My mother was a narcissistic abuser but their generation did not speak about mental health. They had to “get on with things”.
Despite his times, my Dad was a good man. I was raised by a kind, carrying Father so I appreciate the importance of good emotional support in difficult times. I became a resilient and steady adult.
In the last few years of my life in Oxfordshire however, I have experienced severe social isolation and (for the first time in my life) racism. Few years of that Brexit infused hostility resulted in newly acquired anxieties.
It took me 12 months of living in Bristol to collect the courage to cross the Suspension Bridge. I still sweat when I climb the attic ladder! My relationship with fear is very new and very strong. So this challenge is going to be really difficult. Very emotional. Very difficult. But also very healing.
I joined OTR Bristol exactly a year ago, shortly after my move to the warm and welcoming Bristol. I have started feeling better and trusting people again. Losing both of my parents in that period was extremely complex and difficult but I was held by a wonderful group of people who really were there for me. Who show up for young people every single day.
So I have no doubt that my dad would have liked the idea of the SkyDive and if he was here, he would have donated the first sum. I miss him, but I know he would be proud of what we do at OTR Bristol.
I am hopeful that my father’s legacy will continue in my son and that my son’s generation will talk about mental health openly. OTR Bristol is already making a difference in his school so I am pretty sure he will be open about it and supported.
I set up my Facebook fundraiser with similar updates because many of my friends work in social media so they will find it easier to support me there.
I also set up a YouTube live journal which is here with the first video recorded last Thursday to kick it all off.
I will record my second video tomorrow – which in itself is terrifying, but good. It makes me feel slightly uneasy but also happy to have the technology to openly share my journey. I have lost my voice so now I am thinking this is a great opportunity to let go of my newly acquired anxiety, let go and enjoy the journey.
I hope you will join me on this. I hope you will learn something from my explorations as well.
Thank you for reading!
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I will not allow fear
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
Frank Herbert -
Fear of…
“I’m not afraid of death; I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”
Woody Allen -
Internet Addiction
This blog post is long overdue, I am sorry. I was distracted panicking about my summer SkyDive. I have, however, talked to John about Internet Addiction term over on YouTube. Here it is:
As a follow up to that chat, I would like to write up my take on it just in a bit more detail. What do I think about Internet Addiction? I think it is a problematic label at the moment although I hope the context of it is going to change in the upcoming years.
First of all, let’s remind ourselves that every person will have a different definition of Internet Addiction. Those personal interpretations of the term will range from media fed assumptions made by people who hate change, technology or both and assume that anything to do with the Internet is evil. Those clearly lack critical thinking but affect all of us. Walk into any mental health training and you will hear that social media is the first example of factors of bad mental health. (Why and who said so is never stated – we simply repeat what we hear). Media outlets have been scaring us with Internet Addiction since its first years and yet in reality how many of our friends actually suffer today? (some people do, I am asking about your personal average here). The problem with those personal, media-fed interpretations is actually political. Internet Addiction is very often combined with conversations about online safety. I know that at first, it seems like a very irrelevant connection because it should be. But that’s not the case. Not many average web users know that authorities of many countries have managed to restrict access to the Internet under the excuse of safe Internet practice (without defining what “safe” really means).
Midway on the scale, you will find the official definitions by APA and WHO with pretty specific criteria. Those definitions are new and problematic (see below) but at least attempt to define the concept of Internet Addiction. Acknowledging Internet Addiction as a mental health condition paves the way to open conversations about the negative impact of compulsive Internet use. It helps mental health professionals prepare to support their patients. It justifies the funding of related research. It allows support for individuals who suffer from addictive behaviours. There is a problem with the term though. The diagnosis, if given, is based on a term which has not yet been confirmed and researched enough. In the history of APA’s DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – the Bible for mental health professionals) it is probably the first term of this kind). One which enters media and political discourse without the clause stated in the DSM that it still needs way more research to be confirmed. I repeat: it is NOT CONFIRMED. Labels are helpful but can also be political. Rumour has it, I will put it gently, that some governments would prefer their citizens to stay offline and in separated networks so they have lobbied WHO to introduce the term. (I am yet to see a government happy for its citizens to have access to free information, education and collective thinking). Of course, we will never know for certain. What we do know is that many mental health professionals and new startups are starting to make a brilliant amount of money on curing people of Internet Addiction – without a clear explanation of what it really is.
Finally, at the end of this spectrum, there is also common sense, which of course is very individual. When I asked my son what the term means to him his first reaction was to ask for clarification: “Internet is a bunch of tubes and cables so what do you really mean?” – my son is 13 and yet so many adults fail to ask that question. If you ask a counsellor, you will probably hear a description of a classic addiction (withdrawal symptoms, impact on daily life and obsessive thinking about the cause of addiction). But there is a problem with that application of addiction – a lot of forms of Internet use are actually pleasurable and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. If the social web is the extension of who we are than it is perfectly OK to crave learning more, finding out more, connecting more, missing chats with friends etc. What I am saying is – the addiction treatment model does not help!
I do not think we know just yet what Internet Addiction is. I think we need to be really careful and specific when talking about Internet-related addictive behaviours and use those, not the general term. I am really glad to see the Wikipedia definition of the term finally listing different, more specific formats of addiction: gambling addiction, gaming addiction, communication addiction, VR addiction. I think we need to specify it even more and treat each and every single person experiencing addictive behaviours with very individual, tailored but also contextual support.
The behaviour itself is usually a function of something else going on in our lives. Games are full of elements of positive psychology – they make us happy, achieved, connected. They can also be really much more fun than a toxic boss and a boring job. Online gambling can be the extension of our offline gambling habits or a deeper unfulfilled need. Communication addiction can be a result of being abandoned, isolated, alone. And even this is not explicit enough. Because the place of the Internet in our lives is complex, it works together as an element of our reality – something happens online, affects our offline behaviour, we go back online, our habits online escalate, our online contacts respond one way or another, we react or not.
Internet Addiction as a term is problematic. For over 15 years of the Safe Internet Practice Day we have been talking about the impact of the Internet on us in purely negative terms without even considering checking the facts. We have been telling our children that screens are detrimental to their health when it is now proven to be a myth, not a scientific fact. We have been over-using the term addiction without really exploring the meaning of it. And the problem lies in overused, meaningless terms. Because we take those labels and label ourselves too – without any critical thinking.
The bottom line is this. As it is today we do not know what is the impact of the Internet on humanity. It is a complex issue and it needs to be researched contextually with as much objectivity and critical thinking as possible. It’s not enough to state that teens are affected by social media, because we know from good research already that some groups of teens (women, poorer or isolated individuals) suffer, while others thrive. What we need to do is dive into a good set of data with a very contextual set of neutral assumptions and questions. We need to focus on what is said and what is on the other side of the coin. Here is a recent example from Sonia Livingstone’s research here in the UK:
- “Nearly half of parents (46%) and teens (44%) describe themselves as ‘addicted’ to their mobile device; also, a third of teens (35%) and two-thirds of parents (63%) think the other is ‘addicted’ too.
- Half of teens (54%) and parents (51%) say they get distracted by mobile devices at least once a day, and 72% of parents say their teen gets distracted.
- Screen time conflicts are common in today’s families with children – ranking as the third most common source of conflict for parents after chores/helping around the house and bedtime/sleep, and ranking fourth for teens (after chores, sleep and homework conflicts).
Yet 86% of parents say their teen’s use of mobile devices has not harmed or has even helped their relationship; and 97% of teens say the same of their parents’ mobile use. Further, most UK families do not think mobile devices disrupt meal times, most parents allow their teens their privacy online, and most are optimistic about the benefits. “
Even though we are not technically addicted, we think we are. Because the term was so overused for more than a decade. So how do we start to approach this topic with more care? Here is my personal suggestion. Next time that red dot of notifications on your screen calls for you stop for a second and think about the following:
- How does it make me feel? Am I addicted or do I want to know if my friends are OK, have an opinion about my recent post, plan to go out to a nice local event?
- Do I need to do it now or can I do it later? Which is better for me?
- Why do I rush to check it out? Is it because I have time and want to feel connected with other people online? Is it because I am busy at work but also bored? Is it because I am ill and stuck at home? Is it because I have time and I feel lonely?
- Is it OK to feel this way with those motivations? I suspect you will judge yourself, but think about it carefully – is it really bad to seek contact with your friends? Is it really affecting your work or supporting it?
- What is the actual impact on your health and on your relationships? Are you thriving, functioning or struggling?
When I see the red notification dot I know my friends are active and I can check in with them in the evening or at lunch, or I simply have something to do for a client. I plan my day work well to allow myself for online check in and keep an eye on the time I spent online. Usually I spend so much time online for work that I do not rush to check notifications anyway – I treasure the time off screen. But I also love to chat to my friends and love the feeling of online connection, so I make time for it. It does not affect my health or work or life.
Think about it carefully. Question what you read or what you are told on the topic. Next time you say or even think that you are addicted to something related to the Internet I urge to review it carefully in the context of what makes you happy and what impact it has on your health and social connections. Do not overuse the “addiction” – reserve it for the very few who really struggle because their lives are falling apart. Yours probably is not, you might just need to tweak your habits or accept that watching a YouTube movie is meaningful for you right now. And that’s OK.
In the meantime there are a few wonderful people out there who are pushing for the change in the actual Internet Addiction diagnosis and that change is coming. So we will know more soon enough. For now, we just need to look out for each other and keep calm. There is a lot online to read, learn, do and enjoy and that’s perfectly fine. We are actually quite OK.
Good luck and let me know how you feel about Internet Addiction.
Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash
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Divided even more
Today marks a day of a very long journey for me. Since June 2016 I was quiet, I lost my voice. Back then, a few days before the Brexit referendum, I posted a quick note about the meaning of the vote. That post marked an end to an era in my experience of technology. It was also an end of a difficult 6 months of watching the pre-Referendum campaign unfold in front of my eyes and feeling really helpless. Even really social media savvy people took on sharing posts promoting lies about EU not realising that this actually helped the reach of those messages. Discussions about echo chambers only really started when Trump actually won. We have started to learn the truth about social media: its landscape and underlying mechanisms reflect how we work as humans. With the help of algorithms but also very basic human biases, we forgot about echo chambers. We became vocal when some of our opinions should have remained offline. I know many of my friends do not agree with this still up till this day, but I see we are finally learning from Facebook’s scandals. In the recent reactions to Christchurch events, for instance, I have, for the first time, noticed a lot of sentiment around NOT MENTIONING facts not to promote them towards biased audiences.
I call this process resistance. It’s a new word in our new digital reality but I think it works. We do not have to tolerate racism and the divide our political leaders are aiming to cover up their own mistakes. We simply have to resist sharing all our points and think a bit more strategically how our opinions travel in social networks. Do not forget that in social media marketing a mention, any mention (even negative one) is marked as positive for a brand – because any mention is better than none. So the best thing we can sometimes do is…remain silent. Not speaking can be an act too.
“Devolved Parliament” by Banksy Today also marks the day when I am coming back to my more opinionated self. I spent months, years by now, learning more about digital wellbeing. I dived into psychology again to understand our biases. I started figuring out how we communicate online and what is the essence of our digital humanity. Today I know it is the choices that shape us. We all have the ability to act or to remain passive, to speak or to hold silence, to hurt or to protect others. And so as we are going through the really difficult part of the Brexit process I am wondering: what are we learning today? I personally start to see the value in both speaking up and in remaining silent – but both in the right times, strategically. In resistance, but also in active response to abuse and in risking to take a stand.
In the spirit of this new realisation I have visited the Bristol Museum to see the old Banksy work – a very relevant artwork indeed. It was brought back for the tenth anniversary of Banksy’s museum takeover, but it is pretty obvious that it is yet another response to the current political events. I am really glad that some people do take a stand, in a smart way. I really hope that that the next few weeks will bring kindness and unity back to the UK and to Europe, because we are ever so divided. I personally am really fed up with it and will blog on the mental health impact of those events more.
For now I would love to know what you have learned from the last few years of Brexit and the rise of less tolerant movements in Europe and what was the role of social media in this process?
