I feel that beneath most anger, lies a lot of pain. And the resistance to the false thought that you don't deserve to be loved, which you've made yourself believe subconsciously.

This money monger of a shrink that I've seen today gave me some exercises to do for the rest of the week: I'm supposed to write down what I have done for the sake of "love" and "goodness" everyday. The thing is, this would make me do things just because I have to do them, not because I want to do them. Then I wouldn't be acting like myself anymore. I'm gonna try doing it for a week though. But, I doubt that this shrink is "the one" for me.

Self Parenting?

I don't remember where I've seen this before but it goes something like this: "you should love yourself like a parent loves his child and treat yourself the way a mother would treat her baby". I'm sort of nervous about this whole self-parenting thing. Who gets to decide the right way to parent? But still, there must be some universal things that are desired in a good parent. I believe that a good parent should accept her child the way she is and still love her despite her shortcomings. (You can still oppose me on this one. What if the child is doing crack? There is nothing acceptable about that. But I'm referring to more "uncontrollable" aspects such as physical appearance or some chararter trait that has been a part of that person's "ego" for so long that it's hard to get rid of.) I assume that self-acceptance makes it easer for oneself to deal with her shortcomings. You have to start the change from the inside. Then, maybe one day you might eventually realize that some of those "shortcomings" are really magnified by the self.

Perception of misery

What does it take for one to say “I have all the reasons to be depressed”?

During the summer, most of my complaints went something like this: “I still don’t have a job and still don’t feel like doing anything about it, I’m such a lazy bitch” or “Gee, my ass looks big, my legs are too fat”. (mostly the latter, sadly). I also can’t do without mentioning my constant pissed off state towards the stupidity, jealousy and the fake-blondness of the common Turkish girl. During the summer, I sometimes thought that my life really sucked. (Needless to say that those thoughts were false and temporary)

Then came a sudden realization along with a heavy feeling of guilt, after reading the blog of a Lebanese friend written during last summer's Israeli occupation. I'd never really contemplated about what war does to somebody’s state of mind. Somewhere in her blog, she wrote: “All the time that I have spent structuring and maintaining, organizing and deciding, all the effort that I have made into building a self seems to have been broken against this enormous hegemonic body that is forcing its existence on me.” That really struck me. I never had to suffocate from the smell of dead bodies or constantly hear the sound military planes flying over my head and live with the fear that they might drop a bomb or two and I (or worse the people I love) might get killed any second.

Can it be true that, all the effort that you’ve put into establishing a sense of self, everything that you stand for can become meaningless under such great duress? And if so, why do I still worry about the size of my butt? Shouldn’t I be grateful that I’m in a state to worry about my butt or other trivialities in the first place?

I guess it all boils down to that famous quote from The Fight Club: “We're the middle children of history. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives”.

I learned how to upload photos today! It's like my life has found a new meaning. I'm hoping to make an extravagant comeback.