horrible boss/ self discovery

I haven't written anything for so long for two reasons; one good, and one bad. I would rather end on a more positive note so I will tell of the bad reason first.


I have been having some terrible issues with work that made me feel so much worse about my boss and working there than I ever did before. Health insurance is necessary for me to live as a foreigner in Germany, and to have health insurance I am required to have a job contract which shows I earn over a certain amount of money each month. When I started working at this company I received a job contract that was accurate with everything I needed and the government has a copy of this, and so does my health insurance company. Later, without my knowledge, my boss called the insurance company and told them that I was employed as part time and therefore he does not have to pay for my health insurance. But guess what? No one told me that and also the government did not know about this either. So here I am working away since September and suddenly a get a letter from the health insurance company telling me to call and clear something up. Of course my boyfriend had to call and talk with them because my German isn't fluent enough to deal with over the phone business. After I heard the news that no one had paid for my health insurance for the whole year, I was shocked. Next came the news that my insurance was now cancelled. This is terrible because I can't get sick and I need to apply to extend my visa by September 1st and without health insurance it might not fly. And I instantly need to find a new job somehow by this same time that will cover health insurance. So that leaves me broken down, how could someone do that? what did I do to deserve such horrible trickery?


So I went straight to the landratsamt (translates as the District Office.. the place where I have to get all the legals sorted out) to see what could be done. I was allowed to quit my job without worry until September! YES! So, I waited until I got paid to finally quit, and I receive one final blow, I somehow only got paid half of what I should have gotten paid. WHY?! But I had had enough, it wasn't worth staying anymore to try and fight about this money, it wasn't that much anyway. Over the past few days my boyfriend and his family have helped me figure everything out and I now have no worries about my future here in Germany. So to my horrible boss: thank you for kicking me when I was down. you truly were by far the worst boss I have ever had. karma is for real and we will both get what we deserve soon enough.


Now on to the happier reason I have been absent from my new craft (writing this blog), I have been venturing more into learning about my trait of being a Highly Sensitive Person. Originally my eyes were opened by reading Dr. Barrie Jaeger's book Making Work Work for the Highly Sensitive Person, learning and realizing so many things about myself and my life as I went along. More recently, I have been reading the original book wrote about HSP's written by Dr. Elaine N. Aron simply titled, The Highly Sensitive Person. This book which I am about 2/3 of the way through has been making me see my life in a new way. I am able to evaluate my life and realize the reason things went the way they did. I can take what I am learning about myself and use it in two ways, one to stop feeling guilty when I "can't handle things the way everyone else can", and two I can start accepting what my personal limits and strengths are and work on figuring out more realistic standards and goals for myself.


One of my favourite things about life is learning about myself and personality and why I am the way I am so I can move forward and make a better happier life for myself. I have spent the last six or so years working on different aspects of my inner self and life and it has paid off tremendously. I am excited that this time I have figured out the reason for everything, it makes me really happy to know that this battle just keeps getting easier. The inner self always needs work, I am just happy I am at a place of peace with who I am, it makes it much easier to develop.


Now I am going back to reading and I am sure within the week I will be writing about the insight I have gained on being a Highly Sensitive Person!

amy winehouse: a diamond in the rough

Something has been plaguing me for over a week and I think it's about time I wrote about it.

Amy Winehouse

To be completely honest I am not one to listen to the radio or follow the lives of the rich and famous. I didn't know much about Amy Winehouse, I had heard a couple songs and knew I liked her voice, raw and with a different edge than a lot of other famous lady singers. When sometimes hearing about her tales of destruction, I wrote her off as another girl starving for attention. When I found out she died watching youtube videos of herself, I think I may have laughed a little, seeing it as an act of vanity. These were all my first impressions because my only information came through hearsay of the media. This must have been most peoples impression of her. 

Last weekend an interest sparked when I heard someone on "Deutschland sucht den Superstar" (Germany's American Idol) singing  Rehab, the only song I was familiar with. I am very passionate about singing and find it really lifts my mood to really let loose and sing as loud and wonderfully as I can, and when being reminded of Amy Winehouse I thought, I would like to learn to sing a few of her songs. Remembering that she died a couple of years ago I looked her up on Wikipedia. There is a lot of information about her musical career (rightfully so), but there seems to be even more information about her personal life, having drug and alcohol problems, relationship problems. It tells a lot about how much the media attacked her. There is slight mention of an eating disorder, but not much information is given as to why these problems were in her life. All that is written is that her parents divorced when she was nine, and she took it hard when her grandmother died because she was a big musical influence for Amy. 

I thought, 'that's it?' really? So I researched further. Trying to figure out what lead her down the path of destruction. I only could find the information that she had been battling bulimia since the age of 17, that she struggled with self harm, that her abusive on again off again relationship with Blake Fielder-Civil was the cause of her drug problem. 

I started to feel more and more sad for her. No one, not even Amy herself, seemed to care about what was really troubling her. I watched a few videos on YouTube, including some from her final live performance , (says Amy is 'drugged out of her mind' but I am 95% sure she is just drunk) and I couldn't help but start to cry. As someone who has battled an eating disorder and drug addiction, I could see so clearly that she was destroyed inside and out. I got angry, why didn't anyone help her? Why did the media attack her constantly instead of trying to get to the root of the problem. Why are the problems of celebrities blown so out of proportion but not looked into further than the destruction's caused? Why was her eating disorder pushed aside to the public when it is just as crucial a medical problem, especially when drugs and alcohol are part of everyday life? Her brother Alex seemed to be the only one that truly understood the seriousness of her bulimia, to the point he expressed it was the cause of her accidental death. I know ultimately Amy was responsible for her own actions and refused professional recovery multiple times but I feel like more could have been done to help. Everyone was too busy gossiping about her bad behavior, but no one took the time to try and understand that bad behavior can also be due to extreme mental problems.

In my opinion, the media didn't pay as much attention to Amy's eating disorder because drug and alcohol problems are more dramatic and also more visible. It is way easier to write a 'successful' story about the antics caused by intoxication rather than the self-harm caused by an eating disorder. It is much easier for the public to handle a situation that seems as though someone is acting out of control rather than mentally out of control. The media had a horrible approach to Amy's weight fluctuation that was clearly due to eating problems. There are many pictures of a skeletal like Amy holding giant bags of McDonalds food. After she quit drugs for good, she appears to "gain weight and have a muffin top" but looking at the rest of her body she is extremely underweight, and it is very clear to me that she actually has the belly bump of someone that is malnourished and addicted to alcohol.

                                          

I wish that the media didn't hold such authority over the lives of the public, as well as the lives of celebrities. Looking into Amy's life was the first time it really registered what kind of impact the media can have for those being reported about. Any celebrity must be in total mental control to not let the masses bring them down. Reporters and paparazzi are like sharks, one drop of blood and from far and wide they come to feed. I truly feel sorry for the continually growing number of celebrities that succumb to the pressures they feel and end up with drug/alcohol problems and eating disorders or intense weight fluctuation. All are seriously harmful to the body and mind. 

It seems unfair to me that just because someone is famous they must remain perfect and in total control. Fame or not, people are people and almost everyone struggles with some kind of mental or physical issue in their life. Everyone deserves a chance, everyone makes mistakes in their life.

Maybe if the media wouldn't have been so consistently harsh to Amy Winehouse, she would still be here.  it is a shame her personal life became more important to the media and to the masses, which in my opinion is what ultimately destroyed her. 

At least we can forever enjoy her musical talent and distinctly soulful voice, and as sad as it is, at least she is now at peace.