Day 24

Day 24

Developing self-awareness:

I’m currently studying BSc Psychology with Counselling with the intention of retraining in the field of psychotherapy, achieving my new-found ambition of becoming a therapist/counsellor.

I knew I had the qualities, to some degree or another – genuineness, unconditional regard, empathic understanding, and warmth - and all of these I lent to my current career, which turned out to be a drifter who cons the vulnerable, not a friend in need of some TLC.

The “people-pleasing” career did nurture some transferable skills which are lending themselves to the counselling training. I won’t get back the decade I spent on that career but discovering a new one seems like the right way to leave it behind than stewing in the wasted time and energy. More so, I’m trusting that this time my qualities will be nurtured and appreciated in psychology. It feels good to know I’m on the right path, for once.

Part of the training is developing self-awareness. For if we cannot help ourselves, how can we hope to help others. In order to maximise that learning, I’m examining three pivotal, well-recognised and straight-forward models to improving self-awareness:

1. Psychiatrist Adolf Meyer’s ‘Life Chart’

2. Professor Abraham Maslow’s ‘Hierarchy of Human Needs’

3. ‘The Johari Window’ created by psychologists Joseph Luft and Harry Ingram (hence the name).

I’ve began with the ‘Life Chart’ by influential Swedish-American Psychiatrist Adolf Meyer, much of whose teaching has been incorporated into psychiatric theory and practice. This exercise will take some time and I’ll be spreading it over several sessions that I’ll take to meditate on my life up to now.

For now, I wanted to share some of the drafted entries I got down today. Hopefully they’ll inspire some relatability, some hope, or at least give you a giggle. 😊

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1999

School holidays were spent at my Nana’s house. Mum and Dad worked full time and through all school breaks. Grandad had died when I was about three years old. My brother never got to meet him.

At Nana’s, we’d quicky settled into a routine of “Special K” for breakfast, followed by Scooby Doo on the Boomerang! channel then a trip to the supermarket or the local library. The old library in our town was one of my favourite places. I’d pretend to be interested in the kids’ section whilst Nana checked in books at the desk, but I’d soon slink off into the adult fiction. I breathed in the smell, the dust on the jackets, memorised the authors names – KING; KINSELLA; KOONTZ; I didn’t know who they were, but they had lots of books with their names on them, and I wanted to eat them. When we got home, it was time for lunch. Nana would pop her head around the door frame and ask:

“What do you want for your lunch?”

My brother and I replied in perfect unison: “bacon sandwiches!”

I’d get a stack of six in small squares, my brother (3-years-old at the time) would get four. The smell of frying bacon would sneak up on us as settled into Dexter’s Laboratory or Jonny Bravo in the afternoon.

The sandwiches arrived with a small glass of orange juice and a Milky Way bar. Nana was not excessive and fed us rationally. She wasn’t the glutenous or indulgent type, so I always took my time with my food, making it last as long as I could. I’d squeeze the bread together until the butter melted through. I’d eat them really slowly. It was heaven. And the Milky Way? – I’d pick off all the chocolate with my teeth and then eat the white filling.

I still do this today.

2002

I spent a lot of time with my cousin J, who wasn’t much more than 18 at the time – I watched my first horror film (the terrible 90s remake of House on Haunted Hill which, in all it’s awfulness, still scares the shit out of me), I discovered MTV and used my parents landline to phone in the competitions (I don’t remember ever winning, just my mum yelling that she had a ‘fucking phone bill up her arse.’), and plotting how we would get a nine-year-old me into the Rated-12 screening of Baz Luhrmann’s masterpiece, Moulin Rouge.

I had no clue what the film was about, but I was obsessed with the Lady Marmalade song (feat. Mya, P!nk, Lil Kim, Christina Aguilera and Missy Elliot) so I obviously had to see what the film had to offer. I had watched the music video so many times but I since I didn’t speak French, I could only sing-along and make the sounds (I still do this whenever I watch La Vie en Rose). Cue J, who knows the lyrics and teaches me by writing them down on a notepad and having me pronounce each syllable. It was awesome – I could sing my favourite song, and in a different language! I was feeling pretty good about myself, and naturally had to share this new skill with my peers.

At school, the following day, I tugged on the sleeve of my primary school teacher, Mrs G – a heavy-set woman with a scraggly grey bob and bulbous, swollen ankles – and told her: “Miss, I have some French I can teach the class.” She agrees to me taking the last five minutes of the lesson to present.

I stand in front of the class and ask them to repeat after me (and to my amazement, and Miss G’s utter horror, they do…): “voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?”

1992

I don’t remember my birth, but I do know the circumstances… as far as I know I was a ‘wanted’ child, the first child and the second pregnancy after my mum had an abortion. A baby girl, she believed. I was born around 2am, at almost 9lbs. I contracted septicaemia at birth which led to the doctors believing I wouldn’t survive more than a few days. When the doctors informed my parents, my father cried (an unusual sight) and my mother believed this was her punishment for terminating her first pregnancy.

I was kept in an incubator, blessed by a priest, and named after the pop star, George Michael, who’s song Last Christmas was playing over the hospital sound system.

During my stay at the hospital, I spent time outside on the field opposite the ward. There’s a photograph somewhere of me, my mum and dad and a group of Harley motorcycle riders who had gifted me a teddy bear named Benji.

Miraculously, I survived, and my parents brought me home.

1994

As a consequence of the illness at birth, one of my kidneys no longer functioned. The doctor tracking my recovery told my parents it would need to be removed. At aged 2, the kidney was removed, leaving a small horizontal scar on the right side of my stomach and a caution that I would likely experience bladder complications later in life and should monitor what I put in my body. As I got older, this overlapped into conversations with my parents about alcohol intake and punctuated the word “dialysis”.

Can You Drink Alcohol With One Kidney?

Can you drink alcohol? Technically yes. But, does it increase your risk of life-threatening issues? Also yes. So, even though you can drink alcohol, it is not a good idea.

Alcohol affects all of your body’s organs. However, the effects of alcohol on one kidney lead to multiple issues. Although drinking one to two drinks a day typically won’t be an issue, if you have one kidney, it will.

When you drink, you will generally urinate more. But, your kidney is not filtering any blood. So, alcohol is still in your blood. This effect of alcohol on kidneys leads to an imbalance in fluids and electrolytes. As a result, you may become dehydrated.

When your body doesn’t have enough fluids, you can’t function right. The cells in your organs, including your kidneys, can’t function properly. This causes damage to the kidneys. For this reason, if you have one kidney and drink alcohol, it can be life-threatening.

- Reviewed for Medical & Clinical Accuracy by Dr. Jeffrey Berman, MD (2020)