The standards we set ourselves…

I have always set myself impossibly high standards. If I don’t meet my own standards or expectations, I struggle with negative self-talk, berating myself and feeling like I am not good enough or have failed. According to my mum, I showed signs of this from the age of 3, where I was caught in nursery school verbally telling myself off for struggling with some kind of puzzle. I have no idea why I am this way, but I know that this is the way I have always been. You could call it ‘perfectionism’, but I call it being pretty darn harsh on myself.

There are benefits to having high expectations and setting high standards for myself, where I am not satisfied with mediocrity and have always pushed for success and achievement in my studies. I did very well at school, went on to study at one of the world’s top universities, and even received a postgraduate prize for academic achievement in my master’s degree. I stubbornly pursued my chosen career path in mental health and did not let two failed attempts at applying for a training course stop me from eventually succeeding – now I am soon to become a qualified Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner. You could argue that having high expectations and setting high standards for myself has served me well.

However, there is a flip side to my achievements and successes. I recall feeling immensely disappointed when I received a 2:1 in my Psychology degree instead of a first, and my first thought when I found out about my high distinction grade in my master’s as well as the postgraduate prize was ‘they must have made a mistake’, ‘the course must have been too easy’, and ‘I can’t possibly deserve this’. After completing my master’s, I struggled with unemployment for around 4 months after not making it past the probationary period in a role in an acute mental health hospital, due to finding it incredibly stressful and anxiety-provoking. At the time, all I could think was that I had failed and was not good enough and may never achieve success in the mental health field. The reality was that the environment I was working in just was not right for me, and the right job would come along – which it did – I managed to secure a role as an Assistant Psychologist in a Talking Therapies service 4 months later. Even then, I attributed this mostly down to luck because someone had dropped out of the role, leading it to be offered to me. I completely dismissed the fact that I had impressed one of the managers in an interview for a different role when I pushed my academic achievements. Even when I have been incredibly successful, I focus on what I have not achieved, and how it could still be so much better. I also put myself down, feeling like I am some kind of fraud and don’t deserve my success, and attribute it to external factors (You can read more about ‘imposter syndrome’ here: https://www.fastcompany.com/40421352/the-five-types-of-impostor-syndrome-and-how-to-beat-them https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/real-women/201809/the-reality-imposter-syndrome and there is even a TED talk on it here https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_cox_what_is_imposter_syndrome_and_how_can_you_combat_it). Therefore, I don’t congratulate myself or allow myself to feel much pride at my achievements.

Another darker side to setting myself high standards and expectations is that I seem to put achievement at work ahead of my own wellbeing. As I write this, I am off sick from work. I have an inner ear infection which started at the end of last week, where I had to take last Friday off work. Even though I was still not feeling 100% on the following Monday, I still went into work. What happened? I started feeling worse by mid morning and had to leave work again. I visited my GP who signed me off sick for the rest of the week. It was recently pointed out to me by my soon-to-be line manager in my new job that I have had a high number of days off sick from work. My main explanation was that I am too quick to go back to work because of these standards I set myself.What have I learned from this? That even when I am not ‘fit for work’, as soon as I experience some relief from symptoms, I immediately think to myself ‘Oh you should be working right now, because you can’. And because I am not currently working, my mind tells me that I am somehow failing, because I am not ‘achieving’ when I ‘should be’. All these ‘shoulds’ are unhelpful when they create problems and lead to emotional distress. So what do I say to myself now to counter these unhelpful thoughts? I tell myself, ‘in order to achieve the best you can at work, you must take the time necessary to heal. First, you must help yourself. You can’t do your best in your job, be the best possible clinician for your patients, if you keep pushing yourself to work when you are not physically capable’. Self-care means knowing when you need to recharge, to take time out and take a break. Only then can you be in a position to carry on as usual and achieve the standards you set for yourself.

I believe my physical health at the moment is made worse by anxiety which, when chronic, is known to impact negatively on one’s immune system over time (https://www.healthline.com/health/anxiety/effects-on-body#7). I will be writing about my experiences of anxiety and occasional low mood in future blog posts, and the self-stigma I experience alongside this as a mental health clinician.

If you take anything away from this post, take away the message that taking time out for physical or emotional healing is not a sign of weakness – it is a sign of strength and insight. It will serve you well in the long run to be able to recognise when a break is needed and to then take that time to heal. Then you can be in the best possible position to meet all of your own expectations and high standards.

Thank you for reading!

A Trip Down Memory Lane: Reflections of My 17-year-old Self

This evening the idea came to me that I should start keeping a diary of all the positive things that happened in my day, every day. A way of keeping up some positive thinking to help with my anxiety, and occasional depressive moods. The thing is, I’ve been keeping a journal for 3 years, but I just keep forgetting to write in it every day. So I dug out my old journal, the last entry having been in April of this year, and after writing my new entry I dared myself to read back over my earliest entries.

One of the entries just blew me away. I wrote it at a time when I was questioning my identity. When I didn’t like who I was, when I wanted to be a different person, because I was unhappy being the person I was. The contradictions in my words seem to reflect the contradicting and confusing thoughts I had in my head at the time, between the person I wanted to be and the person I felt I was. I focused on all the negative thoughts I had yet still forced myself to write about positive things about myself that other people had said to me. These words came from a place I can still relate to when I think back to being my old self, but yet I marvel at how much I have changed, and I am so thankful to be so much happier, so much more confident and self-assured than I was back then. The entry, written on the 28th August 2011 was titled ‘Who I Am and Who I Want To Be’ and I thought I’d share some of it with you:

Who I Am & Who I Want to be

Someone who cares. About how she makes others feel. How others feel about her. About what others say about her. Someone who wants to be happy, to be loved, liked, to feel needed. To love. I often feel that I simply want to be content, but that isn’t true.

I want to be acknowledged as someone special, worthy of others’ attention and compassion. I want to make others happy. I want to be helpful. To be appreciated. Not ignored. I want people to be proud of me. Not ashamed. I want to stop feeling like this. Like I don’t belong. I want to feel welcome. I wish I could love myself. But I don’t think I do.

I am my own worst enemy. It shouldn’t be this way. I feel everyone is against me, when I have no evidence. I am too quick to be defensive. What am I defending? My pride? Do I even have any? I guess I’m just used to being invisible, turned away, cast out. Lonely.

Maybe I’m the one who created all this for myself. Maybe it’s all in my head. I wish I could get out of my head. It’s like a fortress, vast, negative. I hide away in there. But all it does is make me see the bad things. I know there are good things.

I want to be protected. But at the same time, I want to be strong enough to protect myself. I don’t feel that I can. I feel weak. Defenseless. Helpless. Pathetic. I allow myself to act on impulses too often. No self control. Why am I so weak?

I know I am strong-minded. So why do I not allow myself to show it? I don’t allow myself to be me. Not all the time. I am special. I am kind. I am beautiful. I am intelligent. I am worthy of love and affection. I deserve to be happy. I am not happy. Soon I will be.

I feel I need a boyfriend. A soulmate. I should be more patient. I know there is so much I can give. I just need to put myself out there, not hide away any longer. I need to break out of this cage. Out of my head.

I’ve been told my smile can light up the room. Why don’t I smile very much? Why do I keep crying? I don’t want to be my own weakness. I want to make myself strong. I can light up the world with my smile. My kindness. I can do anything. But I don’t feel like I can.

I’m always too quick to give up. Why don’t I keep trying? I feel like a waste of space. What should I be doing? I hope my future’s bright. I hope I can make myself learn to be happy. With who I am.

I need to trust that I am an amazing person. I need to give everyone a chance to see that. Not everyone – those who are deserving. Someone special. Because I am special. I still feel a long way off. I hope I can make it there.

We all have struggles in our lives. Mine were pretty normal for a teenage girl, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that I felt horrible in those times. Knowing that I have come through the pain, the self-loathing and unhappiness a stronger person who knows herself and what she wants and needs in life, is the best feeling. If you take away anything from reading this, it should be that no matter what struggles you’re facing in your life, they can always get better. If you are battling something within yourself, if you are unhappy, you can and will get better. Even if you need to seek help from others, be it from a friend, family or a professional, there is always a way to get better and come through the other side.

Stress and Decisions

I have always been a very anxious person. My default mode is usually slightly on edge if I am not being distracted by something, be it good TV, a good book, good company or good food. I struggle to not think about all the things I currently have to get done, or will have to get done in the future.  Ironically, I end up procrastinating quite a bit as distracting myself from all of the stress bubbling away in my brain manages to calm me down temporarily.  Really, the only way to resolve the stress is to tackle the challenge at hand.

Why am I like this? I ask myself this question all the time, constantly analysing myself to search for answers. I have come to know my personality over time, discovering that I score highly on the “Big Five” trait of Neuroticism, encompassing emotional instability and anxiety, among other things (follow this link for more information on the Big Five personality traits http://psychology.about.com/od/personalitydevelopment/a/bigfive.htm). So it appears that this is simply the way I am wired. But that does not mean that there is nothing I can do to deal with my anxiety. For the sake of my own sanity, I must work to overcome my tendency to be anxious, to find effective coping mechanisms.

From analysing myself, I have also come to realise that most of the things I worry about are things that are within my control, but that I have low confidence in my ability to overcome these challenges. For example, I have just managed to find an interesting project for my third year research project and had a Skype call this morning with my supervisor. He set me the task of writing a 4 page ‘mini proposal’ for the project, due on July 6^th. My immediate thoughts were “Oh my goodness”, “How the hell am I going to get this done when I have a work placement starting on Monday full time?!” STRESS STRESS STRESS. You get the idea. The thing is that I always get my work done on time. Most of the time I do well with any piece of academic work, and this is well within my capabilities. I also work hard and efficiently once I get started, so I should be fully confident that I can successfully complete this piece of work. Yet I am stressed anyway. I know I am a pessimist a lot of the time, where I tend to use it as a protective mechanism to prevent me from being let down by others, so avoiding disappointment. But really with regards to myself, I should be optimistic so as to motivate myself to achieve, and reassure myself that things will be okay. This is something that I do in order to calm myself down, and it does work, at least long enough before the next thing comes along to cause me stress…

A specific thing which I find to be a big source of stress in my life is making decisions. I really struggle to make even the smallest and most trivial decisions on a daily basis, such as choosing where to go on a date, choosing where to sit in a restaurant and choosing what to order. I have realised that this stems from my fear of uncertainty, of the unknown. All of the possible options being available creates this sense of instability which I really do not like.  If I have no idea what a decision will bring, I would much rather let somebody else make the decision for me, moving the responsibility of decision-maker onto somebody else. I know that this is something I need to overcome, because being stressed about these decisions is really very silly. It reduces my enjoyment of going out, be it with my family, friends or on dates. While it makes sense to be stressed about university work, social occasions should be fun and relaxing. What I have decided to tell myself is that if I am to improve my quality of life, I need to learn to embrace the uncertainty. After all, we never truly know 100% what is going to happen as a result of any decision, or in general. We never know what will happen as soon as we step outside, close our eyes to go to sleep, or order a cocktail we have never heard of before. So people like me would truly benefit from going with the flow, and embracing the chaos that is life.

A saying that I really like is “you never know unless you try”. The worst that can happen with trying something new, giving something a go is that it doesn’t work out. And that actually can have a really positive impact, teaching you something about yourself and about whatever it is that didn’t work out for you.  Trying something new could work out amazingly well – you could enjoy that cocktail, going for a job opportunity could lead to bigger and better things, and agreeing to go on a date with someone you’re unsure about could lead to something beautiful. While I have had experiences where deciding to give something a go didn’t work out in the end, I still learnt a valuable lesson from it, and so I gained something from making that decision to try. I strongly believe that people should not regret their decisions. We all make mistakes and these are important parts of our lives. If one never makes mistakes, they don’t learn who they really are, what they want to do in life, what kind of person they want to be. There is no progress.  I feel that allowing myself to try new things with the confidence that whichever way it goes, it would be worth it, will free myself to make more decisions with ease. I also hope that positive thinking will help me experience less stress with everything I do, and I hope that those reading this will have gained something from reading this.

My time in Poland: 2nd April – 6th April 2014

From Wednesday 2nd April to Sunday 6th April I spent my time in Poland with Genesis and JRoots, as part of a group of 120 young Jews. Having returned from this trip two nights ago, I can honestly say that the five days were the most life-changing, inspiring, enlightening, and uplifting five days of my life thus far. I hope I can make those of you reading this understand why this was so.

Having missed the opportunity to go to Poland with JFS in Year 12 due to the expense of the trip and having not attended the Genesis trip to Poland last year because it was during term time, I knew I had to go on this year’s Genesis trip to Poland. As a Jew, I knew that going to Poland, where most of the atrocities of the Holocaust took place, was both a duty and a responsibility. I also knew that I had to go back to the place where so many of my ancestors died, knowing that my great grandparents had fled to England from Poland during the Holocaust and that many of their cousins were unable to do so and were murdered there. I would not be where I am today if it had not been for the Holocaust, and I am lucky to be here at all as so many perished in the Holocaust where my great grandparents did not.

What made this particular trip to Poland so special was that we had with us the remarkable Holocaust survivor, Dov Landau. He spent three weeks in Auschwitz-Birkenau at the age of 14/15, and lost many of his family in the Belzec death camp. Seeing the fire in his eyes and his incredible strength of character and spirit was a true inspiration to all of us. Thinking and hearing about all that he had lost and all that he had gone through, and witnessing the joy that emanates from him today is a true reflection of the Jewish people’s ability to time and again rise from the ashes of pain and suffering. I had the honour to hear him speak, to be in his company, to have him squeeze my hand and wish me ‘Boker Tov’ one morning, to have him kiss my cheek on another morning and to bear witness to his testimony, all of which were a great blessing and I thank Hashem for the opportunity. On the trip he became known as ‘Saba Dov’ – Grandpa Dov, and people even made up a song just for him, which the group would sing to him. The look of pure joy on his face when he was receiving all of this love truly melted my heart. Knowing that Dov was unable to attend the Genesis trip to Poland last year due to illness makes me certain that I was always destined to go to Poland on this very trip in April 2014. If I had gone on either of the previous opportunities, I probably never would have gone again, and so probably would have never met Dov.

So much happened over the five days. but I will recount to you the parts which resonated with me the most. On the first day, we visited the concentration camp, Majdanek. Not just a camp of hard physical labor, but a death camp also – I saw the gas chambers, the ovens where they burned the bodies of the Jews they had murdered. I saw the huge pile of human ash under the monument, which was simply horrifying. But just seeing the places where so much death had occurred wasn’t what truly penetrated my soul. It was hearing the stories of individuals who suffered there – recounted so movingly by the amazing guide and storyteller Tszvi from JRoots. I was brought to tears by his words, which brought everything to life. At Majdanek, what I will remember most clearly was when the group was stood under the monument in front of the enormous pile of human ash and when Dov stood in front of us and made Kaddish for all those who died there. How his voice echoed! It was such a special moment.

Visiting the children’s mass graves was probably the most moving part of the experience for me. Before we headed down into the forest, the site where the murder of thousands of Jewish children took place, one of the Rebbetzens read out a letter of a mother to her little child explaining why she had to give her away in order to save her life. As she read the letter, her voice began to break, she started to cry, but she kept going. Knowing that this Rebbetzen has two children of her own is what made that moment so moving. As we stood around the graves, we saw other groups of Jewish people standing in circles, singing. I saw young Jewish men hugging each other, crying, the pain in their eyes so clear to see. I felt united with those people also, despite not knowing who they were, despite not speaking to them. Simply knowing that they were Jewish was enough. At the graves, Tszvi told us how the Nazis would throw the children – toddlers, babies, into the pits and smash their skulls with their guns, their bayonets. The horror, the immense suffering. It was incomprehensible. I looked around me and saw the pain on everyone’s faces. We were all unified through our pain, through the breaking of our hearts as we recalled what happened there, as we thought of our siblings, our parents, our children, imagining if it had been us instead of our ancestors. But really it did happen to us. It was not a matter of us and them. They were us. The Jewish people. We were and are a family.

Probably the most poignant and special moment in Poland was when the entire group entered into the living room of Amon Goeth. For those of you who may not know who this man was, his character is played by Ralph Fiennes in the film, Schindler’s list. If you have not seen this film, I urge you to do so, along with The Pianist and Escape From Sobibor, which we watched while in Poland. Amon Goeth was a Nazi who shot Jews at random from his garden, he murdered Jews in the camp of Plasczow, he abused a Jewish woman, Helen Hirsch in his basement. He was a monster. Knowing all of this, and standing in the living room of the house he lived in during that time, we made Havdallah. The candle burned while we sang, while we screamed at the top of our lungs:

Vehi She’amda, La’avotainu Velanu. Shelo Echad Bilvad, Amad Aleinu Lechaloteinu. V’HaKadosh Baruch Hu Matzilenu Miyadam.

And this is what kept our fathers and what keeps us surviving. For, not only one arose and tried to destroy us, rather in every generation they try to destroy us, and Hashem saves us from their hands.

The song itself is so fitting for where we were. That monster tried to destroy us, along with so many others, but we are still here. We returned to his house, while he hanged for his crimes against humanity, against the Jewish people, against us, against my family. We are still here. As I sang, and looked over to see Dov dancing in the centre of us with one of the Rabbis, I was overwhelmed, I struggled to hold back the tears as I felt such immense pride in the Jewish people. That sense of defiance, of victory, of revenge and of pure joy, was so incredibly intense. The ruach, the energy of our entire group throughout the trip and especially that night in Amon Goeth’s house is something I had never before experienced. I pray that I shall never forget how I felt in those moments.

My time in Poland was five days of education, inspiration, enlightenment, and connection – to both the Jews who perished and the Jews I spent my time with in Poland. I learnt so much about what happened during the Holocaust – the horrors of what took place were so far beyond what I had known previously. I will pass on what I have learnt to everyone I can and will encourage every single person to go to Poland, especially Jews, so that they can experience what I have experienced. My pride in being a Jew, a member of such an incredible, remarkable, beautiful people, has strengthened tremendously. I hope to pass on this sense of pride to other Jews, to inspire them to stand up and to never be ashamed of who they are. I have been inspired to change myself for the better and think of others more.

One thing I took from the trip as a whole was a realization that if I wanted to strengthen and repair my relationships with those important to me, I had to start now. I am working to change myself so that my life at home can be better, so that I argue less with my family because none of the arguments are really worth it. I picked up rocks from the ground of the camps of Majdanek, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Auschwitz 1, to keep them as reminders that whenever I want to complain about my life, whenever I feel I am having a bad day, I am not having a bad day. I have an amazing life, amazing opportunities ahead of me, which at least 6 million Jews were prevented from having. They were unable to fulfill their dreams, to live out their lives and fulfill their true potential. But I am able. I will keep this in mind wherever I go, and do my very best to give what I can to the world, fulfill my unique purpose and be grateful for all that I have.