I can’t believe that I once lived submerged in those shadows and thought it was a natural part of life. I’d made a drawing similar to the one that one of the patients (the MD) drew – all black with a spot of bright color to signify hope.

My friend John has written his view of the documentary here.

If you list your projects out like an Rx, will you find that you’re about to OD (overdose) on work?

Well, then… Jane’s tips on safe project administration -

- check to see if there are any Rx interactions (are there priorities that conflict and at odds? does one hinder the other somehow? maybe there are “positive” Rx – one enhances the other and builds upon the other)

- check wash-out periods. some projects just need more down time once you’re done with it because it’s taken so much out of you. factor that into your planning and schedule.

- withdrawal symptoms? some projects give you a high and then you experience some post-project letdown afterward. factor that into your planning schedule too!

- ramp up phases. some projects need to be ramped up slowly to make sure they don’t overwhelm you… once you’re adjusted for the lag phase – go for the log phase and get going with it!

- can’t forget this one – some drugs have nasty side effects (i.e. antidepressants have the added bonus of giving sexual dysfunction) – and you can add antidotes or take drug holidays or adjunct therapies to counter these side effects. so if one of your projects has a nasty side effect – don’t forget to build in side effect management with project antidotes, adjuncts, and holidays! Having a trusted personal posse helps

Jane

A young woman has parents who want her to stop going to school because they claimed that school stress is making her sick; she wants to continue school and feel as if her parents have given up on her and the message she feels she is getting from them is: “Sorry sweetie you make good grades but your too sickly for us to care about your future.”

Speaking as someone who appears to pathologically love school (I kept myself in school for more than 20 years up to a Ph.D. degree), I will echo what others have said here about education being one of the most important investments you can make for yourself.

And I am not even using the Ph.D. degree that I spent 7 years getting – I decided that I did not like doing science research and went into the business side of healthcare industry. Yet not for one second did I ever see my education as wasted. Getting an education exposed me to a scope about the world and about life and about people that I can never get otherwise.

Yes, we want to couple education from life experience! We aren’t going to become surgeons just by reading surgical textbooks – we have to actually pick up a scalpel and practice – and get experience.

But, we learn that an idea such as “surgery” exists – and all these many other ideas we otherwise would not know about – through education. Sometimes education helps us come up with new ideas that others have not thought about.

Now, there is the reality of responding to the parents’ suggestion that she drop out of school, for whatever reason they sincerely believe in.

My suggestion is – don’t fight them. They are entitled to their own opinion, but so is she. This young woman has a right to her own opinion, and what she wants for her own life.

So the next time her father tries to talk her out of it… she can say something like,

“Dad, school is important to me. It is one of the few things I can truly do for myself – for my life. Even if I were to drop dead tomorrow, I would want to go to school today. I am sorry you cannot understand, and I am ok with us not agreeing on this matter.”

Then give him a smile and a hug, and know that she is committed to giving herself the gift of knowledge no matter what other people say.

Note: I have disguised the situations and parties involved to protect the victims! This is based on a true story.

A journalism professional has a monster boss. Actually, this boss is an equal-opportunity monster boss, because he is mean to many people, not just the journalist.

The boss would give the journalist the crappiest assignments with a lot of research work, so that the journalist could never have enough time or energy to pursue more cutting edge stories that would help his career. Whenever the journalist gets really good networking contacts at media events, the boss would start micromanaging him, or questioning the quality of his work, and use these as pretext from preventing the journalist going to any more of these events.

Every other week the boss would remind the journalist how lucky he was that he has his job, the journalist being a single working dad. It is as if the boss wanted the journalist to know that he didn’t need to give working dads the chance, given that jobs are scarce and he could have given it to other journalists without annoying baggage – like kids.

One day the boss told the journalist that he is being let go because the journalist was not doing enough cutting edge stories. Then the boss became really nice to the journalist, as if to make up for all the horrible things that the the boss has put the journalist through. The journalist was not sure what to make of this sudden show of friendliness, or how to behave.

At first the journalist tried to make peace with the boss, and became friendly to him. The boss said to the journalist that maybe he would help the journalist keep his job after all. This made the journalist happy. Then a short time (within weeks) later, the boss said that the journalist’s contract would not be renewed.

The journalist felt as if he was being played in a cruel and unusual game.

I told this journalist that he needs to keep watching his back, and that the cruel and unusual game the boss is playing is called emotional abuse.

People like this have very low self esteem, and they have learned one way of bolstering an illusion of self esteem by taking power AWAY from other people. In the workplace, this usually happens between people who are bosses and those who are subordinates, where the boss will emotionally abuse the subordinates because they are less likely to be in a position to challenge the abuser.

Emotional abuse in the workplace can also happen openly – or covertly.

If the abuser has power over a group of people, then the abuser will openly emotionally abuse several employees, because not many will challenge this behavior. But this will not prevent the emotional abuser from seeking out an easy target to secretly abuse that person. An easy target does not need to be a “weak” person – simply someone who has more at stake and therefore unable to act on impulse (like telling the abuser to “take this job and shove it”).

Emotional abuse in the workplace different from workplace aggression – but it is just as sinister if not more poisonous – because someone can be smiling at you while figuratively sinking a knife into your chest (some of these people do not even bother going for your back)! It is sinister because it seems hidden. Can you imagine trying to file an HR related complaint for emotional abuse? You would be told to “suck it up” or “grow a thicker skin”!

Image by Miguel

Dear Child:

I see you in the corner there
cowering crouching crying
your head resting on the
arms that wrap around
your knees.

I feel you in the cage where
a shame and fear prison
suffocates breath and
silences laughter
from you.

I call to your soul and wake
that light eternal, one
invincible to cruelty
and untouchable
by darkness.

Your soul then rises from the
depths of abyss and fills
each pore of
loneliness
with love.

Rise, Child of Light.

(c) 2010 by Jane Chin.

Note: One of the most popular entries on this site is a personal story on emotional abuse. Even though these wounded children have grown up to become adults and many appear to lead very successful lives, they still live with the pain of their wounds from long ago.

The above was what I wish I could say to each of those wounded children.

“Child of Light” is also a term used by a poem that my husband had written for me in 1997, which I pay homage to in this prose.

Image by Asif Akbar.