At least he had no concept of time

A note on tonight’s episode of Second Jen:

I can’t tell you how much it means to talk about women’s sexual health in an open way. This episode was a labour of love (no pun intended); I’m so glad that we made it, and that our network supported us so unconditionally.

It can be difficult, especially in immigrant families, to talk about subjects like reproductive health, medication, and even illness. But it’s so integral that young people communicate their needs, worries, and healthcare concerns; and that they are listened to without judgment.

A regular PAP test and physical is one of the most important things young women can do to prevent issues with future reproductive health, STIs, and cancer (among other things). Let’s remove the stigma around sexual health, and ensure a healthier future.

For more info on PAP tests, cervical, ovarian, and breast cancer, please visit the Canadian Cancer Society’s website at cancer.ca.

-Amanda Joy

How Going For Walks Totally Cured My Depression

Lately I've been mega depressed; like, Harry Potter Book 5 depressed. But now thanks to this image macro I saw on Facebook, I learned that the cure for my crushing mental illness was not the pill that took many years to admit I needed, but mother nature!

The viral image that solved all my problems

Who knew all along that the cure for Depression was going for walks! I mean, no one has ever told me, or any other depressed person to go for a walk before. Of course I immediately threw out the meds my doctor had prescribed to stop me from spending entire days sprawled on the kitchen floor. Sure it was medically inadvisable, and sure these drugs are a godsend to me and others who suffer from similar symptoms. But I've learned the truth- SUNSHINE is the only selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor one needs!

I know what you're thinking: I could continue taking my medication while also treating my depression with exercise, healthy foods, and fresh air, as most doctors recommend. But as this image macro clearly states,  pills are "shit" and my doctor's an uncaring hack paid-off by big pharma. ILLUMINATI CONFIRMED

Back to my walk. Five out of five stars as far as walks go. I had barely made it four feet out the door when the cool spring air infiltrated the dysfunctional serotonin neurotransmitters in my brain, ensuring that they'd start doing their job instead of half-assing it in the fulfillment of a cruel genetic defect. 

Worried that this euphoria might not last, I made sure to eat an avocado for lunch. Avocados are delicious. And they cure anxiety.*

As a bonus, while that Vitamin B worked to stop my defective nervous system from over-producing adrenaline, I instantly lost five pounds from all the yummy avocado fats! After taking several pictures of my lunch, I decided to really zap my mental illness with the ultimate cure: yoga in a picturesque location. Now I know this may seem like overkill, because I'm already curing my genetically inherited condition with trees, and things that grow on trees, but the internet has taught me that yoga in picturesque locations cures every mental illness and cancer.

When I came home from my walk, I couldn't help but laugh at the hamster wheel I was in before-- taking medication every day to make sure one of my major organs worked properly? I mean who does that? Except diabetics, and hemophiliacs, but maybe they should just start going for walks too. 

So anyone out there who's suffering from Depression be warned: doctors will try to prescribe things to you. But unlike every other drug on the market, these drugs have side-effects and chemicals. And not the chemicals that are already in your body, or that literally make up the entire universe and everything in it. Scary chemicals!

Too long have we lived in the dark, believing only a minority could fully manage their mental illnesses with lifestyle changes... believing that only a slightly larger group could manage their symptoms with expensive and largely inaccessible therapy sessions. Fuck medication, because THAT IMAGE ON YOUR FRIEND'S FACEBOOK THAT MAKES YOU FEEL LIKE SHIT HAS ACTUALLY SOLVED THE MENTAL ILLNESS EPIDEMIC.

And any sheeple who disagree should look up a little something called "mindfulness."

*unless it's 2014 in which case Kale cures anxiety.

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Look, I don't normally write about things happening in my social circle. Because it's petty, and there are more interesting things to talk about in the world than how Sandra's "TOTALLY FEELING #ALLDAYBREAKFAST RIGHT NOW! #YOLO..."*

*though I confess all day breakfast is one of my favourite topics.

But there is a post going around the community. And by "the" community I mean the entertainment industry, because I'm a narcissistic artist and to me this is the only thing "the community" can mean. This message, while I'm sure well-intentioned, is the sort of harmful statement that discourages  people from receiving help for their mental illnesses. And as many of us know, mental illness is a life-threatening, serious epidemic that is especially prevalent in our community.

So look, I don't care if the guy who added me on Facebook is pissed off because I don't think spaghetti squash cures schizophrenia. That's not why I'm writing this. I'm writing this because it could literally save someone's life.

Don't get me wrong, meditation, CBT, mindfulness, etc. can help manage depression. But these things can't "cure" depression. Except in certain cases (some traumatic depression, etc.) depression is a lifelong condition. There is no "cure." Only treatment and management. For a lucky few, symptoms can be managed without medication, but for many others, they cannot.

The big problem with this viral image is that it reinforces the stigma surrounding mental illness- that it's not real, that medication is somehow the lazy/wrong way out, that Depression is the same thing as sadnesss. Many sufferers of mental illness feel too guilty, or too ashamed to seek help, because of messages like this. Why is this important?

Depression is the most common illness among those who die from suicide, with approximately 60% suffering from this condition. [source] Along with suicide, there are lifelong complications associated with mental illness: constant hopelessness, extreme fatigue, difficulty concentrating, and increased rates of cancer and heart disease (to name a few). Every day someone doesn't receive treatment is another day they are forced to suffer in silence.

I could go on and on about the science of Depression and Anxiety, but there are so many peer-reviewed sources available- sources that are more reputable than my blog. So for the sake of this essay I'll just say: People, it's not that hard-- mental illness has physiological roots that emerge as psychological symptoms. Just because obsessive compulsive disorder doesn't make you break out in itchy welts, doesn't mean it's not a disease that needs understanding, appropriate treatment, and -yes- self-management. You wouldn't tell a diabetic not to take their insulin and just start speed-walking. Because it's fucking dangerous. So don't go around telling mentally ill people not to take their medication. You don't know what they're going through, and you don't know how they might interpret what you're saying. They may...

• Be newly receiving treatment for a serious mental illness, but still be in denial of their condition.
• Feel guilty about their disease, and think seeking medical help makes them "weak."
• Doubt that mental illness is real and can be treated.
• Be suicidal and already self-loathing. 

When you say "medication is shit" what you may mean is that you think "nature is great." But what someone with depression reads and interprets is that nature would cure them if they weren't so useless. You may mean "I think drugs are over-prescribed" but what someone suffering from a mental illness reads is "If I were any good I could manage my own symptoms without medical help."  You may mean "I think walks are great for helping with sadness." But the depressed person reads "My disease isn't real."

CAMH recommends that we use the "STOP" method when evaluating how we speak about mental illness. Because regardless of what we mean, our words can often have more power than we know. It can even be the difference between life and death. 

We reinforce stigma around mental illness when what we say:

• Stereotypes people with mental health conditions (that is, assumes they are all alike rather than individuals)?
• Trivializes or belittles people with mental health conditions and/or the condition itself?
• Offends people with mental health conditions by insulting them?
• Patronizes people with mental health conditions by treating them as if they were not as good as other people? [source]

So what should you say?

This pie chart from Buzzfeed gets it across pretty well:

Can We Stop Making These?

 

Reflections on a New Year

Today was the first meeting of the year for the Young Emerging Actors Association at ACTRA Toronto.

Sitting in the board room I saw the passion from our members-- the joy of community, of creating art, and of understanding. I also saw the hurt, the rage, and the confusion over the narrow-mindedness of our industry.

I feel, more than ever, that despite competing for jobs, we are family in our craft, and in our dreams for Canadian media. At this crucial time, it's up to us to unite as the salt of change-- as storytellers, actors, and artists. Even though sometimes it doesn't feel like it, I know there are those in power who are advocates for inclusive, fresh voices that reflect the beauty of our nation in all of its diversity. And as the public psyche changes, these advocates will seize the opportunity to help these stories emerge. However, it's up to us, the artists, to create, fight for, and make our projects with the integrity and passion that they deserve-- to create and tell stories worth telling. If my experience with YEAA is any indication, then we are doing just that.

There were so many talented, intelligent, thoughtful, and passionate people in the room today, who have -and continue to demonstrate- the power of collaboration and of creating work that speaks to our genuine experience. I know that one day we're going to look back and know that we as artists each pushed an inch, and together pushed a mile. Thank you ACTRA, YEAA, Diversity Committee, and TAWC for bringing us together, and for proving just how strong we are together.

A Visit to the Oriental Art Shop and Tea House

The Oriental Art Shop and Tea House greets its guests with the unmistakable scent of patchouli- the official perfume of stores that sell Asian stuff.

“Namaste.” Anna, the owner, greets me, putting her hands together and bowing. She’s a petite woman in a silken Mongolian top and long flowing pants; beads adorn her blonde dreadlocks, and bracelets jingle from her wrists.  I bow back to her, doing my best to respect her culture.

Anna kindly offers me some tea brewed with mint from the gardens of Tibetan monks. “I picked the leaves myself,” she grins as we sit on rattan chairs in the corner of the store “The monks didn’t even say anything about it.”

Anna tells me about her journey in founding The Oriental Art Shop and Tea House (which she insists I call by its full name throughout this article). Five years ago she was an exceptional student at a local Liberal Arts College. “Not, like, exceptional in terms of grades” she notes, exceptional in that she was much smarter than her classmates and could have done better grade-wise if she felt she needed to.  “There are many ways to measure intelligence,” she says as she sips tea from a clay cup “you can be book smart, or you can be life smart.”

After school, Anna tried a variety of different jobs, from jewelry maker to yoga instructor. Subsisting only on her menial wage, and an allowance from her parents, she was forced to live with a roommate. Nothing felt right: “I just, like, felt like I was, like, destined to be something more!” That’s when Anna bravely decided to leave everything behind, and travel the world by herself. “It’s scary,” she admits “And I wasn’t sure if I’d be brave enough to do it, but I’m so glad I did.”

Anna phoned up her parents, and no sooner did they transfer her money for flight and living expenses, did she bravely take off for a trip across Europe and Asia. The sacrifice proved worth it. Staying in hostels, and backpacking with other impoverished travellers, she found inspiration in each destination. “I learned how to cook,” Anna blushes “When you’re a poor traveller, you need to learn how to live within your means. But it’s all part of the experience.”  

It was in Tibet that she found inspiration for many items in her store. Everything she stocks is hand-made by craftspeople whose pictures don’t adorn her wall, but who look sort of like the stock models whose pictures do.  

“Some of these items are from India, some are from Cambodia. I bet you don’t see a lot of stores with things from Cambodia! Are you Cambodian?” No, I tell her, I’m not Cambodian. She sips her tea again and thinks for a moment: “Thai?” “No.” “Vietnamese?” “No.” We laugh as she flicks back a perfect dreadlock.

“After seeing the kind of art that other countries have, I realized that we were really missing out here in Canada. People need more stores that sell artisan products from Asia!” Anna grins, beaming from her own brilliance “So I figured: why can’t I be the one to make this happen?”

 After doing more research in the mountains of Tibet, and the bars of Singapore, Anna decided to come home and make her dream happen: “I was really sad to leave. I’ve never really felt like a white person, so being in a place where I could really come into my own was something else. Everyone was so nice there, so accommodating—they just, like, want to take pictures with you and put you on TV! It feels really nice to belong and get the authentic experience.”

 No sooner did Anna arrive, did she give her business proposition to her parents. “They were so proud of me and my ambition,” Anna almost sings “they transferred me the money for a down-payment right away! And the rest was up to me! I painted the place, did the inventory, and even made the sign outside. I really built something, you know?”

I take another sip of my tea and smile, asking if her parents are prouder now that the store’s open. She nods, enthusiastically: “Yes. I mean, it just goes to show what you can do if you’re dedicated, hard-working, and really want something! Don’t ever fall prey to your fears. Just look at all I’ve accomplished with The Oriental Art Shop and Tea House if you don’t believe me!”

NOTE: The ORIENTAL ART SHOP AND TEA HOUSE closed shortly before the publishing of this article. Anna is currently in Korea teaching English.

The Power of Vanity

The upcoming scene required quite a bit of makeup—much more than my friend, Sarah, would wear in her everyday life. She sat still, relaxed by the rhythmic licking of the powder brush on her face.  She didn’t say much; just stared ahead. I watched as the face that stared back at her became stranger and stranger, until it was no longer recognizable at all.

“It’s weird to see a reflection that almost looks like me…” …but prettier, she later admitted to thinking.

Whether she realized it or not, her external admission was more than a meaningless comment; it was a symbolic interaction, in which she made an excuse for staring at herself. Because it was not really her own face, but one created through blush and powder, it was an acceptable request. As she turned her head this way and that, I’m sure she thought about how funny it was that she needed to be wearing someone else’s face to have permission to look at herself.

I watched, fully aware that a woman’s face is as much a prison as her body.  There are enough journals on the problem of ugliness—the unattainable standards we are held to. Look anywhere online and you’ll see a myriad of women in all shapes and sizes standing up and saying they are beautiful! But what we fail to note is that by being in campaigns and commercials, these women are given permission to make such admissions. They'd hardly be viewed in such a heroic light were they to say these things in their everyday life. For in our society, there are few worse sins for a woman to possess than vanity. Vanity, the way we interpret it, is in itself oppressive, because it implies that a woman's role is to care enough about our appearance so as to please others, but never to be pleased herself. And inherent in this role-making is the idea that we are objects to be looked at. Never are we to look. Unless, of course, we are wearing a different face. 

I’ve known Sarah my whole life, and know that -like many women- she had been taught to be apologetic about her appearance. She knows that paying too much attention to her reflection, or believing she's pleasing to look at is an unspoken sin, and that the vitriol for committing such an act would come from both men and women.  I remember when we were about fourteen, we were in a hot, crowded room, chaperoned by a student's mother. Sarah developed faster than the other girls in class, and when she took off her cardigan, the mother snapped at her: “Don’t show off!” Sarah sheepishly put her cardigan back on, suddenly aware that her body might be looked at; that her figure was inappropriate. If Sarah had not seen action as a sin before, she saw it as one now. Because -whether she intended to show off or not- taking off her cardigan showed off her body.  And confidence was forbidden; the cost for such an act was public shaming. As an adult, the truth remains much the same.

These campaigns cannot be effective until we change as a society.

Despite our ground-level insistence that women be humble, everywhere the external mantra is about being comfortable in your own skin, loving your body, loving yourself. We can have as many campaigns for body acceptance as we’d like, but the whole thing will be perpetually disingenuous until we as a society become comfortable with the idea of a woman actually finding herself beautiful. Until then, if we are to give these “body positive” advertisements any mantra it’s: Love yourself, but not too much, because a woman who believes herself to be aesthetically pleasing is a cow (if she’s far from the objective ideal, then she’s a deluded cow). The belief in our own ugliness (or at least in the absence of our own beauty) is really the only respectable relationship we can have with our appearance. And that is a tragedy, because it means that we live an inherently separate existence from our physical self. 

Vanity forces us to build our relationship with our bodies around how others see us. In doing so, it splits our awareness into two planes-- our existence within ourselves, as a person, and our existence outside of ourselves, as an object. We are all a Children of the Earth, as Plato would say, and we are fated to a lifelong desire to reunite with our other half.

Sarah admitted that –despite what you would think looking at her now- she had spent most of her life subliminally conscious of the fact that she was very ugly; to this day she feels ambivalent toward her own appearance: “I believe I’m objectively pretty, because people have told me so. But would I look twice if I saw myself crossing the street? Probably not.” The girls in elementary school never wanted to play with her; the boys barked at her and called her a dog. She had a wood hairclip that made her feel pretty for a week, until a boy unceremoniously cracked it in twain and that was the end of that. “Put together,” she admitted, apologizing for her own admission of weakness “this sounds tragic and self-involved. Sorry.” Of course. It's inappropriate for her to feel ugly. Just as it's inappropriate for her to feel beautiful.

But I knew she was only trying to describe a state of being she had previously taken for granted. Ironically, despite the teasing, Sarah was more whole when she believed she was ugly. Of course it brought its own set of problems, but by being excluded from the beauty game, she was allowed to dwell at peace with herself; her appearance was irrelevant, because her appearance was un-salvageable. Would she go back? Probably not. But this is the point zero at which we compare her journey from a whole self, to one that -like many of us- is ultimately two entities.

In many ways, we’re afraid to tell our girls they're beautiful, because we're afraid they'll grow up valuing only their beauty if they believe they are pretty. This conjures too many images-- Narcissus, the fox and the fruit, or even celebrity folk figures like Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian. But if beauty is given too much weight in society, then it is certainly not from the hearts of little girls—little girls live in that plane of existence where they are one with their faces and bodies, and never once think about what image others project on them. They simply exist. There's a vanity in this; one which says that their bodies are for their own pleasure, and not for the gawking of others. It is when they become self-conscious that this utopia fades away. Beauty is the catalyst to separation between the living, breathing, soul of a girl, and the body she inhabits. It is the apple from the Tree of Knowledge. And the taboo surrounding vanity, forms the gates which keep her from ever reuniting with herself.

I remember how, toward the end of high school, Sarah and I were crossing the street to the food court, when a popular girl stopped to tell Sarah she looked pretty with her hair down. It was an insignificant moment for the other girl, but it was the start of Sarah no longer being invisible. She wasn’t determined to be a model or anything, but it took her from a reality where she felt like she was watching everyone, to a reality where she was being watched. Suddenly, she was aware of her own body and image in a way she’d never been before. Good or bad.

She dressed to please, began wearing makeup, and agonized over every coarse hair on her head.  Some days she whined to me that she had a fat face, big teeth, tired eyes, and blotchy skin. Other days she made me smile, as she declared how much she felt like a fairy princess in a school uniform; it all depended on how many men honked their horns, how many yelled at her from their car windows; how many were kind to her at school. Somehow that one comment from our classmate moved her outside of herself, and she began to view her body through the eyes of others.

We all have such a moment; such a moment when we realize we are expected to be as pleasing to look at as we possibly can—without ever being satisfied. The “unattainable beauty” of the media thus becomes irrelevant; we are, by society’s design, expected to always be unsatisfied, lest we be seen as vain—as whole. As dangerous. 

Far be it from me to say I have a cure for this kind of oppression-- oppression born of ideology is ultimately a complex thing. But if there's anything I've learned as a student of history it's this rule: an ideology can only exist so long as people do not notice it. By being aware of the ways in which our own thinking holds us back, we are able to chip away at the taboos that are our chains.

What I didn’t say to the makeup artist that day was that I see a different person in the mirror always. That person (who I've called Sarah in this blog) is not allowed to look at herself the way that others are. She lives a separate existence, as the me that others see, but I'm not allowed to. We constantly try to put ourselves back together, to stop seeing ourselves as separate entities, but the truth is that we probably never will. Because our uniting is a sin; she and I exist for others to look at.

“It’s weird to see a reflection that almost looks like me…”  I say, excusing myself from the sin of vanity.

Just as I pretend to talk about someone else, in order to reflect on my own relationship with my appearance.