I know there is a better way to deal with this and I know that I did not do this well. I believed that no matter what words I chose, I would either be minimizing the experiences of someone to make someone else feel less bad or I would be alienating and hurting other students for misunderstanding them and allowing them to take the blame for what is starting to sound like a linguistic misunderstanding. I erred on the side of not minimizing the experience of the student who felt shut out. 

As a consequence, I worry I have really alienated people from this course and the profession by "taking sides" and stepping in to mediate something in the most clumsy way possible. I feel guilt and shame for unfairness and inadequacy at my job. I am dreading interacting with these students and this class now because I clearly handled this badly. I tried something I had never done before and I failed. I knew I would fail, but I also knew not doing anything would be failing in another way. 

Fear of failing paralyzes me. It is what is making it hard for me to write my book. (What if it sucks so much?) It's also why I don't like to speak Swedish in front of people or don't like trying new things with an audience. Trying and failing is humiliating. When I fail publicly, I feel shame for hours. 

This week I had my first official EMDR session with my therapist. We identified a core memory - it was not from the physical abuse. It was about an incident after a soccer match where my father expressed such disappointment and contempt for my poor playing. It is deeply tied to my fear of failure. Failure is not something I perceive of an opportunity for growth and improvement. Failure is very personal. It's associated with my worth and whether people will want to have me in their lives or keep me around. Who do I think I am to deserve love and attention and respect and money or a job or friends if I am just so incompetent. 

She had spent a few years in the US and was set to live here permanently until things in her life upended and she returned to Germany. That was in 2009, so this visit was her first return since then and was also a way for her to revisit some of her fondest memories of her time in the US (in Connecticut and California). 

The day after she arrived, we went to the Maryland Renaissance Festival and on our way home, we hit up Target!. The next day, we visited the cutest town in Maryland (Frederick) and then spent the afternoon taking photos, picking pumpkins and eating apple cider donuts at a nearby Pumpkin Patch. We did the Ghost meme (see below), and I loved how it turned out!

I am dealing with a lot of personal stress this semester. Some of this is due to overcommitting at work. Some of this is due to my trauma response to stress which I am trying to deal with through therapy now. In addition to insecurities and self-esteem issues deriving from the child sexual abuse, it's clear I'm also a very typical case of eldest daughter syndrome (God how I want to slap my parents for their fucking immaturity - if you cannot fucking parent your own children, don't outsource this work to your goddamn 8-9-10 year old daughter. And also don't have 4 fucking kids!).

So while having a houseguest for a week during the semester was also a stressor, it was also a really beautiful antidote to the stress of work. Friendships are so dear. Someday I will be forced to retire from my job/step away from my career due to health/age/politics. But none of that is relevant for friendships. 

You are never to old to be a friend, and I remain so touched and happy that this wonderful woman I met through Sherlock fandom and got closer to over the years has remained a fixture in my life and put aside her travel anxiety to come visit me and chase autumn for a week. I have so many beautiful photos and memories. 

 

Each visit was fun and deeply meaningful in their special ways. But in separate conversations with each, I found a trend emerging that I want to stare at and maybe take to therapy.

After listening to me talk at length about a number of things including a struggle with knowing my own values, my old friend observed that I had values and my own self but that I had been raised and trained to doubt in myself and not believe that I was capable of knowing them. She said that my authentic self was visible and is what got me to throw off my upbringing and reject the very overt patriarchal belief system* being imposed on me. This was a really good observation.

My newer friend shared with me something she and her husband had found useful for understanding themselves - The Enneagram System of personality types. They did say it was heavily used by Christian fundamentalists but not based in Christianity. I took a look and found it reminded me of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator which I find useful for thinking about certain personality features. The quick test very easily highlighted a personality type that resonated with me: Type 6: The Loyalist. When I read the description of this type, I saw the things that I have been consciously struggling with - things like anxiety, fear of the future, deep insecurity and self-doubt (I don't trust my own judgement). I've highlighted key words below that resonate with me.

The committed, security-oriented type. Sixes are reliable, hard-working, responsible, and trustworthy. Excellent “troubleshooters,” they foresee problems and foster cooperation, but can also become defensive, evasive, and anxious—running on stress while complaining about it. They can be cautious and indecisive, but also reactive, defiant and rebellious. They typically have problems with self-doubt and suspicion. At their Best: internally stable and self-reliant, courageously championing themselves and others.

Merging these two threads, I can see choices I have made and continue to make that stem from a need for support and stability - going along with my father's lies about the abuse to keep my family stable; scrambling to secure citizenship documentation and my passports during lockdown so I could travel/flee if I needed to; taking on the chairing of faculty searches or the faculty senate vice president to keep my department and university running when it seemed most unstable; taking on the president role of an European organization to grow it and stablilize it (my vision is not grand - it is to make it secure so it does not go under) when no one else was willing to take that responsibility. In all these tasks, especially the leadership ones, I feel overwhelmed by the terror of failure and ruining everything. I am overwhelmed with self-doubt and act with too much caution. 

It is still early days with this new therapist, but I want to hold on these pieces of information because they are linked. I am an anxious person who struggles with self-doubt and am fear-driven. I don't want to be this way, but I have been conditioned to doubt myself and my abilities. I know that anxiety is also a perimenopausal symtom and that may be spiking right now as well. But so much of my fear stems from self-doubt. I am tired of this and want to move towards self-reliance instead. I want to recognize my own strength and agency and to stop thinking of myself only as someone weak-minded and fearful who is acted upon by other stronger forces and personalities. 


*My father, who sexually abused me when I was a child, used to have explicit talks with me about the purpose and higher calling of a woman being to give birth and raise children. He used to disparage the women he worked with and swore that he would never have another woman manager again because they were too emotional. My mother never wanted me to leave home for university and thought all I needed was a little community college coursework before I married a local man and had children and was a SAHM like her. This was not my fate because my father persuaded her to let me go to Duke University (my first choice university) in part to make up for sexually molesting me. After I graduated, I did not have a career direction and spent a lost almost year back home working admin jobs. My dad wanted me to get a job with a bank. I instead found a position teaching English in Japan for three years, and have never looked back.

 

But I think I do need to walk away entirely. It is not what it once was and it has become something else.

The past few days, I have seen countless tweets posted by BlackTwitter and others critical of the anti-Harris position being promoted by (some) of the Free Palestine movement. There is a lot of anger and condemnation - so much so in such a short period of time that it feels very orchestrated. 

I believe now that anything that provokes such a strong emotional reaction on Twitter or other social media is a sign of manipulation. If I feel this way, I know that I am being manipulated. 

I don't care who is doing the manipulation, I don't like having my attention and emotional resources exploited.

Elon's interview with Trump has also riled up a lot of EU regulators and some of my EU friends. I think this is going to have ramifications for the whole platform too. 

I think it's time for me to close up shop soon. I just need to grieve a little first. 

 

My talk, which I am still organizing because that's how I roll (but seriously, if I prepare something too far in advance, it will not be fresh in my mind) is coming together nicely. I am still re-ordering things to tell a story that fits. This talk is a featured talk, which means I have a full hour as opposed to the usual 20 minutes and I believe in telling a story that keeps people interested. Part of this includes relevant images to accompany texts. 

This is where I need some help. I myself am not a fan of Korean media thought I know quite a few who are and I wanted to ask for recs. I have a few images of Blackpink and BTS as well as groups of fans. I am avoiding anything with signs in Korean since I don't want to ignorantly post something offensive. I am much less familiar with Kdramas thought. I have grabbed a few images from Netflix series that have come up on multiple fan lists of the best Kdramas. So far this includes an image from Mr. Sunshine and Twenty Five Twenty One.  However, there are SO MANY and again I don't know what some of these might signify. Does anyone have names of K-pop groups or K-drama series that I should consider looking into?

 

No Spoilers!

I am very intimidated by the process of meeting therapists and finding one that is a good fit. I have had both exceptional and barely adequate relationships with therapists or counselors in the past. Some of this has been due to linguistic issues (my Swedish was not strong enough and their English was not strong enough). In other cases, I lost trust when religion or spirituality was invoked as part of the process - I shut down around religion, even when it is not Christianity, so I have eliminated all therapists who directly or indirectly reference religion or spirituality in photos or the description of their practice.

I have reached out to a few friends to ask for advice finding a therapist and they have given a few practical ones:

1. See if they have a testing session so I can find out if we vibe.
2. Find out if they can be available in a day or two when there is a crisis.
3. Consider finding someone who works with the LGBTQ+ community and has experience with some of my sexual abuse issues and ask if they are willing to take someone who is not LGBTQ+.

I thought I would reach out here in case there are other tips people might have about the process of finding a therapist that fits. Any advice welcome.




 

First it is a mad up media narrative that they want privacy and not something H&M stated themselves when they stopped being working royals. They wanted to not be hounded by the media - particularly the British tabloid media. This extended to their children not being the object of such racist and toxic coverage.

The toxic and racist media coverage would happen whether or not anyone had titles because they are still persons of interest who sell papers/garner clicks. This was evident when Meghan was only dating Harry (and thus had no title) and described as Almost Straight Out of Compton even though she is not from Compton and has had no association with gang violence or gangsta hip hop other than being half-Black and being raised in another region near L.A. Similarly, Meghan's mother, Doria Ragland, who has no titles and is herself Black has been the object of tabloid and online rumor for having served a jail sentence for drug use.

There are also plenty of other titled members of the extended British royal family that don't get nearly the media coverage that Harry and Meghan do even when they may be involved in questionable business dealings with Russian oligarchs.   

The coverage of Harry and Meghan is driven not by their titles but rather by who they are and the stories built up around them to sell news. Harry's mother was Diana (the glamorous, heavily mourned, former Princess of Wales who died tragically young and whose entire life sold a lot of papers) and his father is the current king of the UK (which is kind of a big deal in the UK). His grandmother was the longest serving monarch of the UK who was so tied in some ways to UK identity and tradition. Even without a title, he's a known figure because of who he is. Meghan as his nefarious biracial American divorcee actress wife also fills a narrative that sells clicks and ragebait even when the two of them live far, far away in California. Removing their titles would not suddenly make them invisible to tabloids. 

There are others who questioned why they insisted on their children having titles when they have chosen to not be working royals. Aside from the nonissue of lack of title ensuring lack of toxic/racist media coverage, I would speculate that insisting on titles is a way to ensure some sort of connection to Harry's heritage, family of origin and country. It takes a lot to step away from one's family of origin, and I imagine it takes even more to step away from your country of origin as well if you truly believe your children are not safe there. While Harry and Meghan have made a life for themselves in California and have greater control of the security they can have, the limitations on the security they can have in the UK despite  the right-wing threats to Meghan means that that even visits there are considered too high risk. I would imagine Harry is doing what he can to support a connection to this side of his children's heritage and insisting on ceremonial things like titles is one of them.

He's an immigrant to the UK - a weirdly privileged and high profile one - but that privilege doesn't mean that he doesn't want to pass on his heritage to his children too.