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PTO project live and I’m angry

asian, depression, family, manners, PTO Project, publishing

My latest project is the Pessimist to Semi-Optimist (PTO) Project which battles depression by addressing one negative thought a week throughout 2017 with thinking exercises. While launching this I was working with the editor of Ricepaper magazine to publish an article of lessons learned from deaths in my family entitled Save a Life, Stop Being Asian.

I’ve received lots of positive feedback from friends and family, which is great, but then the trolls among my friends and family came to visit. The internet is the wild west and comments from strangers don’t hurt as much as people whom you interact with daily or have known for many years.

So far I’ve been accused of:

  1. Hating the Asian culture – not true. I am merely pointing out that strengths in our culture become weaknesses during a healthcare crisis. For example, being stoic and protecting face (reputation) at all costs when help is needed. I can not tell you how much energy was wasted fighting face instead of getting medical help.
  2. Victim blaming – not true. When people are really sick sometimes they don’t recognize that they need help (due to mental illness) or refuse (being stubborn), which makes it really hard to help someone when you know the consequences.
  3. Pretending to be a medical professional – not true. I work in the healthcare sector, but I am not a doctor and I don’t claim to be one. The PTO project is my journey on depression which I’m sharing in hopes of helping other people struggling through the same thing. When you are down and flat on your back, believe me, any little thing that can prop you up helps.

Other than anger, I feel deep disappointment. The same people criticizing me now and telling me to stop writing are the same people who were not there when crap went down. They are such busy people, they didn’t even attend the funerals as well. They also grill me about religious values, tolerance and acceptance of others – yet they are not being empathetic or helpful at all. Feeling stupid for believing that people should practice what they preach. Good grief, how can I not be a pessimist!

I know everyone is struggling with something, but please don’t beat other people up when they are already down to make yourself feel better. Really read or listen to what I’m saying before you go bat-shit on me.

Apologies for my rant. Will forgive everyone tomorrow, will be angry today only because I know I have to let go of anger or else it will destroy me. I’m trying to harness this energy for good by writing and will chose which friends and family to allow into my life from now on. A grief counselor told me quite frankly that “with friends and family like these, you don’t need enemies!”

If you are going through something similar in your life, know you can only control yourself and your reactions. If avoiding someone isn’t possible, you will have to make the best of it by changing your own behavior and choosing to share only selective things from your life with them. Running away does help, but only works for a little while because the main problem still remains.

Thank you for reading, have a good day and let’s all try to be slightly positive among the rubbles of life!

 

Colour Unboxed Art Show Review

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Colour Unboxed is a local art show put on by the “Out of The Box” fibre artists group based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. You can see the show at the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum in Almonte, Ontario, Canada between Dec 20/16-Feb 25/17. Note they may be closed on certain days due to holidays, so call them ahead of time before your visit.

Approximately 200 pieces from over 60 fibre artists are in the exhibit, displaying interpretations of six colours of a colour wheel (blue, yellow, green, magenta, orange and purple) and black/white. Each piece must contain 20% of the colour chosen by the artist.

Fiber art refers to art made from materials consisting of natural or synthetic fiber and other components, such as fabric or yarn. Techniques includes machine/hand embroidery, quilting, weaving, felting, doll making, silk painting, fabric dying, etc.

The gallery is located inside the annex of the former Rosamond Woolen Company, a building constructed in 1867 which is a National Historic Site of Canada. I wasn’t sure what to expect since I am not a fibre artist, but I was blown away by the creativity and innovation of the artworks on display.

Many of the pieces were mounted on 12″ x 12″ canvases which were grouped according to a color. There were assorted nature themed canvases featuring bark, flowers, bugs, jellyfish, trees to more abstract pieces with hearts, lines and dreamlike shapes.

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Larger pieces in the show were just as impressive – a button filled treasure box, space landscapes, animals and texture oriented pieces. The space earth piece (inspired by Apollo) in the picture below is available for sale for $1500 Cdn which I would have loved, but not sure if Viking husband would have supported this. My pictures do not do these works of art justice as a flat 2D picture can’t capture the different textures and vividness of colors in the pieces.

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Another amazing piece is the first one in the pic below with multiple images of shoes surrounding a house. Each shoe image is printed onto a piece of fabric and made into a quilt pocket. Inside each pocket is a story of where the shoe was purchased along with other details about the artist. The dragon piece is Smaug from Lord of the Rings who is guarding lots of jewels and baubles. Anne, the artist of the paper houses was on hand to describe how she created this work of art and the techniques she used. The museum is run by volunteers, so you will be able to talk to people about their art and learn new techniques to add to your own creative life!

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Lastly, no one can leave a museum without visiting the museum shop! There were lots of beautiful vintage clothing in the front of the store, but alas, I was a bit to big for a gorgeous black ribbon bolero that was for sale. I did pick up a few souvenirs: fabric pins, a needle felt kit and a catalog of the show. The catalog book gives the back stories of all the 12″x 12″ pieces, materials used and how the artist was inspired. In the shop were also gorgeous pieces of art on sale by local artists as well and hand made cards with mini quilts.

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If you get a chance, visit the textile museum in Almonte for an inspirational time!

Dollar Tree Canada Review

family, fun, travel

Whenever I rave about Dollar Tree in Canada, people look at me with puzzled looks about how excited I am to go there. Dollar Tree offers fantastic value for brand name products and has become one of my favorite stores to frequent. I think it’s because I grew up in a frugal immigrant family and we were taught to be bargain hunters. There wasn’t much left over with three kids and my parents sponsoring their parents along with relatives to Canada. We were always at sketchy malls and flea markets versus the fancy shiny malls that I visit today.

Dollar Tree is an American store which sells items for $1 USD in the US or $1.25 Cdn in Canada. Its headquarters is located in Chesapeake, Virginia and they operate 13,600 stores throughout North America. According to their website, its stock is trading at $85 USD today. They also recently purchased the Family Dollar chain for $8.5B USD to expand their empire.

My family first discovered Dollar Tree while cross border shopping in Buffalo, NY. For some reason my mother was really obsessed with buying toothpaste at the time. Anyhow, what attracted me were brand name quality items such as Disney toys/coloring books/puzzles for the kids and fantastic event planning stuff. If you are having a party with a Mickey Mouse theme for example, you can grab everything here – party cups, banners, cupcake sleeves, candles, loot bags, loot bag toys, puzzles, stickers, pens, etc. They even have helium balloons which they fill in store too! All for $1.25 each!

The Dollar Tree Canada stores carry less items than Dollar Tree US stores and do not carry frozen groceries. Compared to its main competitor – Dollarama, Dollar Tree is pretty amazing since the $1.25 Cdn items they carry may cost $2-4 Cdn at Dollarama (examples – Betty Crocker brand containers, reading glasses, scarves). However, Dollarama (Canadian company) has over 1000 stores all over Canada versus the mere 100 Dollar Tree stores spread across five provinces.

Typically my Dollar Tree haul will include lots of children books (Sesame Street, Mickey Mouse, Avengers) and toys, however, today my shopping was interrupted by my Viking husband who came early to pick me up and drag me out of the store. He is the total opposite of me and strongly dislikes shopping.

dollar-tree-haul

My purchases today included: books, Disney kid socks, Trophy peanuts, Arizona ice tea, scrapbook tape, Clearasil acne cream, Betty Crocker muffin mix, Nissin cup noodles, Loacker chocolate, index cards and mini picture frames (large picture frames same price, but I needed small ones for wallet size pics).

Dollar Tree also has a lot of scrapbook stuff and seasonal items (Christmas, Valentines, Thanksgiving).   After a holiday is over, they put their seasonal items on sale, so if you are near one of these stores you could get a box of Christmas cards for $0.50. If you are a parent, I highly recommend this store for random kid things because they sell licensed products which won’t break the bank! Now go to the Dollar Tree website and find a store near you for some happy bargain hunting!

 

Thomas The Train Party on a Budget

Babies, children, family, food, fun, kids, Uncategorized

There has been enough doom and gloom lately to make me depressed for a lifetime, so my husband decided that we should do something fun and plan a kid’s birthday party instead of thinking about death all the time.

Since my offsping is into Thomas the Train, I thought a Thomas themed party would be great. I looked up some parties and thought that this kid Max’s party was the gold standard! You can click on the picture to check out the other fabulous treats served at this party.

I’m going to admit this feels like the time I was just watching exercise videos on the couch with a friend and us commenting on how much work it seems to exercise as we ate chips!

Here are collages of my hack party (certain Max’s party had a higher budget!) which ended up to being lots of fun due to the crazy kids running around the room! The younger kids were more interested in playing with the wrapping paper than the presents. Meanwhile, the older kids asked to open presents and acted like wild animals attacking something as they ripped apart wrapping paper with fury…then yelling “eww” when the presents were clothes instead of toys!

The Thomas cake was ordered from Metro supermarket and had a chantilly cream filling with blueberries. The blue/red dyes were really strong and stained a lot of hands!

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The adults were civilized, of course, drinking and eating munchies while having polite conversations. Grandma was a bit bored since she doesn’t speak English, but there were a few people who could speak to her and entertain her while I played hostess. We were really grateful for all the wonderful toys given to us as presents! Much more fancy than the toys I had while I was growing up (bootleg Cabbage Patch Kid dolls?)!

The kids I babysat that night (yes, I had to babysit even after the party) wrote on the notepad which I was using to keep track of presents for thank you notes. The word “poo” seemed to render them into hysterics for some reason. I wish I could let loose like that sometimes and not worry so much!

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A lot of free resources are available which makes it handy for those who have color printers. To make life easier, I used a 2″ puncher to cut out cupcake toppers which I used to decorate packaged oatmeal cookies.

Here are the links to Thomas party resources  for someone else wants to plan a similar event!

Doodle Bug Designs Thomas “Happy Birthday” banner (free)

halegrafx.com has Thomas Cupcake toppers, water bottle wrappers, invites, thank you cards (free)

Official PBS website has free coloring pages and activity sheets (free)

Passion for Savings has “Happy Birthday” banner, cupcake toppers, food labels, water bottle labels, loot bag labels (free)

Thomas cake purchased from Metro grocery store ($)

Partycity stores had Thomas decorations, loot bags and assorted party supplies ($)

 

Thinking My Way Out of Depression

culture, death, depression, family, health

“I don’t understand why you are like this. He’s dead, life goes on. Why are you wasting your time?”

It’s great that the rest of the family can move on with life while I sit around and lament about the death of my father, the lost future with him as a grandpa and how life just sucks. I always thought I was adaptive to change, but obviously it’s not true when it comes to life changing events. The docs tell me I have PTSD due to my looping of the last day before his death over and over again, along with major depression which makes it hard to do anything. Even calling up a friend feels like the energy will drain out of me and I’ll collapse.

Many pushed anti-depressants on me, but given I get stoned on allergy meds, I decided I’m not sure if I want something that could rewire my brain. Instead, I am trying something called “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy” (CBT). Basically I’m trying to think my way out of depression by going to counselling and doing lots of thinking homework every week. The idea is that CBT will help you stop the thoughts which are spiraling you into depression.

In my case, one thought that comes back over and over again is that “I could have saved my father.” This consists of all the would/could/should have scenarios which contains millions of possibilities and endings. Then guilt and sadness enters into the equation and I end up lying in bed, being very depressed and not being to do much as I fall into this deep well of horrible thoughts.

This is a classic case of complicated grief in which the brain is rewarded with feeling closer to the deceased while suffering and in pain. A Neuroimaging study done by the University of California shows how complicated grief rewards the brain which makes adapting to the reality of the loss more difficult.

This week, by filling in worksheets with my situation (similar to ones found here) I find evidence for/against if the thought is true and what is the cost of the thought. For the “I could have saved father” thought, the scenarios could have or not have worked out and by doing this looping, it has a high cost of neglecting my family/work but at the same time I am rewarded by feeling like my father is still alive (glimpse of hope). Taking a step back, the situation is the same – father is dead, so no matter what I think I could do, it is useless since he is gone.

Ideally,every time the looping about saving him starts, I need to be mindful and respond to myself by thinking “Yes, I could have done more, but it’s too late. Father would want me to take care of the rest of the family now and carry on his legacy.”

George Micheal’s “Praying For Time” lyrics come to mind:

Hanging on to hope
When there is no hope to speak of
And the wounded skies above say it’s much too late
Well maybe we should all be praying for time

A lot of this mindfulness stuff is based on Buddhism, but with the religious component stripped out and scientific methods applied. Asians are such practical people, sometimes I wonder what is wrong with me. I am such a failed Asian…

In a way I’m starting to do what the rest of the family has done by forging ahead into the present/future. Instead of forgetting the past though, I think it`s valuable to learn from it. I’ve written an article on how to handle healthcare crisis in the family (sent off to magazine publisher but no response yet) and thinking about writing a book which may help others.

These quotes struck a chord with me and I find them comforting:

“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?”
~ Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)

I know I can’t wallow too long in depression or else I’ll drown in the puddle. CBT has helped me quite a bit, but I know the road for recovery still has a while to go for me…

Accepting Death and the New Reality

death, depression, family, Writing

Buddhist saying: “Death is the mirror in which your life is reflected.”

I haven’t written anything for a while or done anything creative since my father passed away in the summer. This month I’m slowly pulling myself together, working through a writing course and speaking at a conference. Doing little things to stop my brain from going crazy with grief.

Since I live in North America and grew up in a safe environment I have never really experienced much death. The death of a few friends over the years did impact me, however, the death of a parent is a totally different thing. I work in healthcare which is a double edged sword because I know where all the resources are to get help, but when the worst outcome happens, I find myself feeling responsible for this failure. Rationally, I know not all patients make it through the healthcare system because people do get sick and don’t survive. Stats don’t help when the situation is personal.

It is inevitable that we all die. I know this. But when a parent dies, you’ve lost your home, your source of wisdom (which you only listen to half the time!) and a person who loves you unconditionally no matter how many times you screw up. This event totally destroyed me and my heart shattered.

People who have lost their parent(s) approach me and we have a connection since we are living in a new reality which we do not want to live in, yet we have no choice. As a parent myself, I know that if I go, I would want my child to be happy and free of sadness. However, at the moment I find it very difficult to feel any joy because I have survivor and filial guilt. I know I am drowning in pain. I know I am majorly depressed and have PTSD. I am getting professional help. It’s been a slow climb uphill to patch together pieces of my heart and to survive minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day.

One thing that has really helped are Buddhist Dharma talks by a monk called Ajahn Brahm. The Buddhists really take a positive spin on things. Instead of the concept of the body being an enemy as you age, the Buddhists consider death as a return to nature. Ajahn Brahm compares the life of his father (which he only knew for 16 years) to a great concert in which he was grateful to have attended the performance. I recommend listening to this monk as he imparts a lot of wisdom about living life to its fullest and how to handle difficult situations.

A friend told me that we have perhaps 40 good years to use between the age of 30 and 70, when we are mature enough to realize that we have to pull our crap together and really live before we start getting sick/die. Also, my Chinese doctor told me that I must do good before I die. To do good only for oneself is being selfish. So one must do good for oneself and others in order to make this world a better place.

I don’t know when death will be at my doorstep. So I will use my time to create more stories which I hope will make a dent in this big world and will carry on the legacy of my father by taking care of my family. Nothing was more important than family to him. He sacrificed everything for us and I have to learn, grow and do good from the experience of his death. If you have parents that are still here, please tell them you love them. Because life is precious, fleeting and unpredictable, but death is a certainty we will all face one day.

Working Is A Break From Baby!

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It’s been a long while since I blogged. I’ve been tweeting a lot since it’s faster!

After giving birth, I went back to work full time and to writing! Things are super busy and scheduling is the most important thing to keep things balanced in our household.

I am behind on so many writing projects, but I can’t stop new ideas from inspiring me! I’ll be running a new Kickstarter campaign to ask other moms and dads to help me create a book of recipes to feed our children because sometimes I just don’t know what to feed my offsping! Another project coming soon is one with micro tales about race which was inspired by the whole whitewashing debates. It gives me hope that so many people are interested in the topic of diversity!

Stay tuned, project launches coming soon!

Book Launch Sept 29th with JF & Zainab!

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On Sept 29th, Mon night, from 6:30-9:00pm I will be at the Centre for Social Innovation for a “Visionary Women’s Fiction Book Launch”!

Zainab Amadahy and I will be presenting our multicultural sci-fi and fantasy books.

There will be food provided by Popup Mojito Fusion. As well, staff from Muskrat Magazine, Chinese Canadian National Council and Accents Bookstore will be there to network.

Date: Sept 29, 2014

Time: 6:30-9:00pm

Address: Centre for Social Innovation, 215 Spadina Ave, Alterna Board Room, 4th floor, TORONTO

sept 29 draft V2