Behind bars.

"Aren't you scared? I mean, there've been newspaper reports about aftershocks and recent post-quake floods in the area... ... Ah, you're very brave."

I was at a party, and everyone who found out kept saying the same thing to me, over and over. Yes, I am a little scared, but not of the things they spoke of. Yes, I thought, perhaps I was brave in some sense, but not in the way they thought.

I'm not afraid of live cockroaches or spiders, but I'm afraid of hamsters; I'm not afraid of para-gliding, but I'm afraid of driving; I'm not afraid of travelling alone to developing countries in the midst of political stability, and not afraid to walk past rioters burning flags, but I'm afraid of walking home alone through my side door late at night, and of the things weird lonesome characters with lusty eyes and cheap beer tell me; I'm not afraid of the possibility of aftershocks, or post-quake floods at the place where we'll be setting up a mobile clinic, but I'm afraid... ...


... ... of a bad, bad man following me there.


His name is Ed.



It's been an eventful week. What with the start of a three-week vacation before we're thrown back into the meyhem of hospital drama, the intensive, intensive, intensive therapy sessions, and the double-edged availability of time, Ed has been working overtime to try and kill little Anna before she heads off to Sichuan for medical relief work.

Ed is a bad, bad man.


But in spite of all the low tactics which Ed has been using, like seduction ( "Oh look, there's a weighing scale right over there, why don't you walk right over?"), telling lies, or distortion, little Anna is refusing to be defeated.

A few days ago at church, a timely coincidence made her see through the viciousness of Ed's deceitfuless. How ironic it was that on the same day, two different people at church told her entirely different things- "Oh, you look like you lost some weight dear, no?" and " You look like you've put on some weight... that's good!"

This made little Anna very confused.

But as usual, Ed only listens to what he wants Anna to listen to, so he can gain complete control over her life.

Ed made her feel very ashamed because recovery means it can get hard to look at a plate like a normal person. There is one portion here, and one portion there, and oh my goodness, why are they all chanting the same lie Ed tells her over and over.

Little Anna would like to appeal to all well-meaning people trying to help girls married to Ed not to pass comments regarding their weight, because this may pull a thousand unseen triggers, no matter which way the comment went.


Intensive therapy, for me, means good progress is being made. But it also makes Ed more angry, more out-of-control, and I have to fight back twice as hard because his rage knows no boundaries. Ed knows food is not like alcohol or cigerettes or glue or cocaine. He knows I cannot put it away and pretend it no longer exists. There is food on a plate three to six times a day, and Ed is right there with me. It helps when I have meals with good people, people who are normal and who love me. It helps so much.


I kept wondering why the Big and Professional People gave me their full support, complete with banners and streamers and confetti, at my request to join a medical relief team to Sichuan, a place stuck with disaster and trembling with grief, devastation and trauma. Their faith in me brings tears to my eyes. For truly, I am afraid.

Not of the possibility of aftershocks, or post-quake floods, or the fact that we get to bathe only thrice in 8 days and that we'll be staying in tents. But of the devastation of the people, of the pain in their hearts, and... and of Ed, too.

So you see, I'm not brave in the aspect which people think I am because how can one be brave in the face of something one isn't afraid of in the first place? Courage is the triumph over fear. This is not humility, but inaccuracy.

The Professional People aren't afraid of that, though. They tell me they think Ed will stay behind, because unlike the good part of Anna, Ed is mean and selfish and awful through and through. He won't like going to Sichuan, he won't like relief work. And most of all, he won't like seeing Anna living her dreams and helping people and being happy. I know he's unhappy and hopping mad, too- he's been trying to get her down all week this week.


Ed is a bad bad man. He instills fear in people by making them believe they aren't worthy of Love at all.


He's gone too far this time and little Anna is really upset with him. So today, she decided that she had had it and finally asked Big God Up There to please put him behind bars for her so she could go to Sichuan without him telling her how close to Ele he thinks she really is, how much of a failure he thinks she is. Put him behind bars so he can't get out. Put him behind bars so he can no longer put fear in little Anna where it ought not to belong in the first place.

Where fear exists, there can be no love. But where fear is cast out, Love comes in to take its place.

Love, the size of God's heart, comes in to heal the wounds Ed has left behind, comes in to cradle the hurts of others grieving and longing for God, comes in to grow into a plus-sized hug which knows no end.

Little Anna is doing her best to trust in God- that He will keep His promise to protect her from Bad Ed. Because God always keeps His promises, each and every one of them.

Ed is put behind bars now, and I think as little Anna prays each day, she will find more and more comfort in knowing that where God is, Love is. And where Love is, there can be no fear.

Anna is ready to fly. She leaves on early Monday morning.

Anna's going.



And Ed is staying behind.

" There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear..."

- 1 John 4: 18a

Frostbite yesterday.

We've been going on intensive mode for quite some time now, and it hasn't been easy. Anna still has huge issues with fears of abandonment, and this sets off huge triggers like fireworks.


If there was ever a toughest day at therapy, this would have to be it.

Even in early Spring, it takes time for the sunshine to warm the frost.

All posts under the link Therapy chronicle her journey to recovery from Anorexia and depression with professional help from the team at the Singapore General Hospital.

By sharing her journey, she hopes it will help shed light on these highly misunderstood illnesses, and encourage those of you considering professional help to take the brave step forward to confront your challenges. No one recovers by themselves- take the first step foward.

Slowly.

I see 4 people now. They all work in a team, each one helping to shed light on an illness from different angles, providing help in different ways.

There is Miss B, whom I look forward to see with anxiety and anticipation at the same time. She spends an hour each time with me, helping me cope with Recovery. She is most kind and tender, but also firm and honest, shining light on dark areas which I alone am afraid to tread, helping me recognise the Ed (eating disorder) as a bad boyfriend who needs to be gotten rid off, and how to do so. Miss B is the principal psychologist of the hospital.

She tells me Ed is a abusive boyfriend because like anorexia, he promises you things that are most attractive but ultimately unfulfilling, enticing you back into his arms after each abuse because of the charm and comfort he provides, and eventually destroying your self-worth from the inside out. He makes you believe you're ugly, abandoned and unwanted, and that nobody else but him will accept you- and only if you become very, very thin and sickly. He is a sick man, who likes to run and work out and destroy vulnerable victims- Sometimes, I think it is he who likes to run, and who makes Anna run far more than she would really like to. I don't think Anna really likes running all that much.

This is Ed, my bad boyfriend whom Miss B is helping me severe ties with for good-



There is Miss A, whom I just met this week. She helps me to understand the origins of the illness and how they stem from my familial background and childhood. She approaches the illness from a familial angle, and is the one who will eventually speak to my Big People to help them understand This.

Because of certain Incidents, a little girl was forced to grow up very quickly without really being allowed to be a child for long. At twelve, she was Head Prefect, but also an adult, parent, wife, counsellor. Thus, there is a part of her that still very much hurts as a child, and who longs to be one, to be parented. Miss A wants to help her Big People understand that when she does act up, it really is the child inside who wasn't allowed to grow who is doing so.

A little girl learnt, that one of the primary feelings of her childhood was that of abandonment. Because of certain familial dynamics, she has grown to be morbidly afraid of giving her heart away to... men, of any kind, even if some of them really were or are gifts from heaven. She tries to keep a Safe distance from them all and is really is afraid of what they would do to her, not physically, but emotionally, because of what Big Papa did to Raggedy-Anna a long time ago. One of the principal feelings of her childhood was that of abandonment, and she's just so afraid another one of them would... well. It is so scary for her. But Miss A wants to help her to learn to trust them again, and not to reject them all outright, because some of them really are nice teddies.



It wasn't easy seeing Miss A. At one point, I had to tell her to stop because it was hurting so bad. We talked a lot about God, and I showed her a lot of my pictures.

"What is your mental image of God?" she asked me.

"I don't have one."

"All of us do. It's whether we are conscious of it or not." She coaxed me to think about the one image that would always surface in my mind whenever I was with God alone. It took some time.

"Ah yes. It's me on my knees, my hair at his feet. Like the woman in the bible story- Mary and her jar of perfume."

"It's very telling," she said, "what your pictures tell me about your mental image of your earthly father, God and men. Your experience with your earthly parent has extended to your relationship with God, do you see? Can you imagine yourself in God's embrace? On his lap, in his arms- other than his feet?"

I paused for a long while. It was a very difficult question. My answer surprised me- "No," I said. "No. I am unable to imagine that."

"Do you see? It's that feeling of unworthiness again."

She was spot on. My pictures were so telling- and she saw far more in them than I did. It explained why Anna never grows up, and why she's precoccupied with wearing white, and only white.

Before I left, I heard Miss A say, "This is very unconventional family therapy- I usually don't talk religion. But I think this will help you." She smiled.

It did. It's when they keep going in circles without bringing God into the picture that really messes me up.

Miss A wants to help me see that we have the privilege not only of being at our father's fingertips, but also to sit on his lap, be caught in his embrace, rest our heads on his bosom.

There is Dr L, who helps to arrange the different people who have to see me, and who takes care of medication.

There is the dietitician, whom I'm supposed to see after my upcoming final exams.

Is it tiring to see them?

Yes. I have not taken an afternoon nap longer than twenty minutes in the past few years. I slept for more than an hour yesterday at mid-day, out of sheer exhuastion.

It is a long road, but we will make it there slowly.




*All posts under the link Therapy chronicle her journey to recovery from Anorexia and depression with professional help from the team at the Singapore General Hospital.

Loving Monsters.

We’re so obsessed with being good, so afraid to be found out that deep inside, perhaps we’re really not. So afraid to acknowledge the evil that lies within the crevices of our hearts, and so afraid to be exposed. But we forget, that besides God, everything in the world is both good and evil. Perhaps it is not the presence of evil that makes us loathe ourselves, but our loathing of that evil, our rejection and our denial of it.

Perhaps, just perhaps, the most beautiful of people are not those without an ounce of evil within them, not those who hate the evil within them, but those who accept, acknowledge, love and win the evil critter within them over, to be taught, tamed and transformed.

Perhaps, just perhaps, true beauty comes from embracing, and not rejecting ugliness and evil.

Today in Miss B’s* room, the quest to find the missing piece continued. It was so hard. The little girl with sunshine and rainbows in her hair cracked. There was a foul, foul odour, so foul that they both had incredulous looks on their faces. She was scared. It was absolutely horrifying.

There was a foul, foul odour, so foul it clung onto skin like a huge, messy cobweb you couldn't get rid off. And oh, how it stank. She didn't expect it would be like this, but when they opened her up to see where it was in her emotional system that had gone wrong, they got more than they bargained for.

Miss B had told her at the last session- “We’re going to take away everything you or any human being ever put worth in, and look at what's left. It's going to be very, very scary. "

It was. It really was. Suddenly, the girl with sunshine and rainbows no longer existed, and a huge, ugly, green-eyed monster morphed into horrifying reality. It was a hideous, heinous ogre, with multiple tentacles, writhing and heaving and seething in anger, stretching across the floor and reaching the ceiling, consuming all light, sucking away anything that even hinted of love. It was selfish and greedy and astounding Ugly. There was no girl with sunshine and rainbows. It was a monster, a full-bodied, writhing, life-sucking Ugly monster.

“I find it so hard to reconcile... Where did this come from? I don't recognize this Wai Jia." Miss B said.

She was so scared she couldn’t stop crying. Where did this come from- this evil, bloodthirsty, life-draining, power-hungry, self-seeking creature? This creature that bears her same name. This creature that is the cause of all her Insecurity.

So this was what it was, what clogged the system. It wasn't a screw, or a missing piece. It was a Monster. A foul, Ugly Monster, hiding for years underneath a veneer of achievement and good deeds, sucking her up and draining her dry. Now that all the sunshine and rainbows had been stripped away, it finally resurrected itself in honesty, and put to shame everything that was ever lovely, or beautiful.

She crumbled at once. Oh, the weight of it all. The stark reality, and the stinging, smarting shame.

"Look at me. Look at me," Miss B said over and over, more than ten times. And she couldn't. There was panic and tears and fear and shame. This was so hard. This was so very hard- to strip away everything you ever thought you were to look at the inside bits, to find not a timid, confused little child waiting to be saved, but a nostril-flaring, fire-breathing, life-consuming monster that was unthinkably Ugly.

Her greatest fear uncovered. She was found out.

It was too much to bear.

Everything throbbed around her and the tears wouldn't stop. There was fear and panic and tears and shock. Now that the monster had been exposed, she had been found out. It was the most horrifying question of all-What if deep down inside, there was no girl with pretty rainbows or kites or flowers in her hair, nobody who wants to become a missionary to help the poor and needy, no loving, giving, serving person who wants to love till it hurts, love God till eternity. That deep down inside, what if- all there was, was really just an evil Ugly monster just waiting, waiting, waiting to be found out and come alive and devour the little girl who really isn't real at all.

To come to that place of complete honesty, to uncover a beast you never imagined existed, to even consider that beast might be… you and not what you thought yourself to be- can be a scary, scary thing.

"Look at me. Look at me," Miss B said over and over, more than ten times. And I couldn't. It was so hard. You think the world of yourself in so many ways, hold on to your strengths and qualities and finally have them challenged, put down, extinguished by a monster so real it even bears your same name.

Finally she said, " This crying, this crying person here... This is the girl I know. And this is courage- to accept what you have just discovered. Breathe, just breathe."

Perhaps this is the greatest lesson of all- that to come to the place of true acceptance, one has to embrace both the good and evil within oneself. For so long she hated herself because of the monster within her. It was so large and so real but she never could look at it in the eye. Little Anna is so small, so pure. She couldn’t stand up to it.

Perhaps that is why, in our deepest darkest moments, we loathe, hate and despise our very selves. We’re afraid of being found out, afraid of the monster inside, the monster that exists within each and every one of us.

And perhaps all we need to do is to embrace it. No, it is not to say we condone evil, and not to give up on the epic battle between darkness and light. But it is to come down, face-to-face, to acknowledge the monster within, to see it in all its full-bodied Ugly glory and to still… accept it. Accept it because it is a part of who we are, because it takes courage and humility to do so, and to forgive ourselves because the monster bears our same name.

It is not to say we have lost the epic battle. In fact, we win it. When we choose to accept the evil monster inside, we choose no longer to deny it, but to love, embrace and teach it. Evil monsters cannot look you in the eye because that is being polite, they cannot hug, cannot love. So when we choose to look at it in the eye, and embrace, love it, accept it, the ironic thing is, Evil does not win- it diminishes in size.

Evil monsters cannot survive in the presence of love.

It was so scary, made scarier by the fact that the monster grew so big because someone messed with the insides of her head. She didn’t mean to let it grow. She wanted to kill it. But she is all right now. She is learning to love the Evil, Ugly monster inside. Love it so much and so hard with the love of God that it will no longer be able to survive.

Perhaps sometimes, in order to hate evil, we really have to love it as much as we can, love it so much we can even forgive it, let it go.

She is learning what it means to love herself all over again. Not just the rainbows and kites and pretty bits, but to love, even the ten-foot tall, ugly, pimply, one-eyed ogre with bad breath and sticky tentacles, this Ugly ogre that is the cause of all her Insecurity, what drives her so crazy. Love it so much she can look at it in the eye and forgive what she sees, love it so much she can accept it and teach it patiently, love it so much that in time, it has no choice, no other choice but to become smaller, to diminish in size.

There is a long road ahead. The Monster will not go down without a fight. This makes her very tired, and she has had to cancel appointments except church because this process is so very tiring. She is still fighting it, still losing sleep searching for a spear big enough to bring it down when no one’s looking. She can hardly be in the same room with it, much less hug, love, forgive it. Knowing it lives right under her skin drives her absolutely crazy.

Perhaps this is what true courage really is. Loving, and not fighting our Monsters inside. Loving our Monsters and putting our weapons down, forgiving them because even God forgives them. He really does, He even loves us in spite of them.

Because perhaps, just perhaps, it is when we are able to accept, forgive and embrace the Ugly bits within ourselves, that we no longer loathe ourselves and become Beautiful. Perhaps it is when we are able to love the parts that we hate, that we are able to love and forgive others along the same cracks and same faults. Perhaps, just perhaps, all we need is to let go, stop fighting, wind down and see just how much even God loves us, in spite of our monsters.

And perhaps when we finally do, there will not be fear or tears or shame or shock anymore. There will not be the fear that the Monsters might be our true selves, not be the shame that we allowed them to grow, not be the shock at the terrifying realization.

Because when we finally do accept, forgive and embrace them, perhaps that's when we'll find the little girl with kites and rainbows and flowers-

- right there where she started. Beautiful and Secure again.

All posts under the link Therapy chronicle her journey to recovery from Anorexia and depression with professional help from the team at the Singapore General Hospital.

* Miss B is the principal psychologist who works with people suffering from eating disorders at the Singapore General Hospital.

Advertisement.

She runs on

Impulse.

Pulsing, rushing, gushing-her heart cannot contain it.

Trickling, streaming, flowing, pouring- her heart cannot contain it.

She wants to, has to, will run fly paint dance- there is no word to contain her Impulse.

It is rushing, gushing, trickling, streaming, flowing, glowing in and out of her. Pulsing through her pulse.

An Impulse. Uncontainable, and indiffusible.

She is looking for a photographer willing to go on a misadventure with her. Her previous one is willing but busy, and Inspiration cannot wait till he is less so. He took the risk and now, she is looking for another risk-taker. Soon.

Photographer WANTED:

Excellent skill.

Artistic.

Michievous, impulsive, risk-taking, and willing to spend an afternoon with a fellow artist-herself- soon.

In return, gets an afternoon of Surprise, Artistic exchange, Misadventure and

Deep conversation.

Photographer WANTED.